This morning, the news broke that Larian Studios, developer of Baldur's Gate 3 and the upcoming, just-announced Divinity, is apparently using generative AI behind the scenes. The backlash has been swift, and now Larian founder and game director Swen Vincke is responding to clarify his remarks.
They honestly should have expected this given peoples visceral reaction to anything AI. Personally, I have huge problems with AI and refuse to play most games that have used it. I think it’s poisoning every creative industry and replacing important jobs while using vague the excuse that it makes things “easier” while making the game soulless in the process. I’m willing to give Larian the benefit of the doubt simply because of their previous games being amazing, but imma wait for the reviews on this one. This game is still going to be in development for another 4 years and none of us will no what’ll happen between then and now, but for now I’ll remain hopefully optimistic
Most people—even obsessive gamers—don’t give two shits about AI. There’s a very loud minority that gets in everyone’s face saying all AI is evil like we’re John Connor or something. They are so obsessive and extreme about it, it often makes the news (like this article).
The market has already determined that if a game is fun, people will play it. How much AI was used to make it is irrelevant.
I don‘t like to admit it but you‘re likely right. And there are very cool use cases for machine learning if done right. And some of these concepts are already in successful games.
Of course there absolutely is slop that I‘m refusing to buy and companies do face backlash over it. No doubt about it, but that really doesn‘t mean every single use case for AI is bad or makes for a terrible product at all.
But it is interesting to see how much pushback you‘re facing for this comment while most people seem cool with it when Larian does it for some reason. Consumers are hypocrites sometimes.
I’ve yet to meet a single person in real life who isn’t turned off by AI, and there are fewer and fewer of you grifters in the comments these days trying to defend it.
Fuck LLMs and dispersion models, its not art and it’s not even AI.
Except it’s not a small minority anymore, which is understandable given how pervasive chatbot enshittification is becoming. Maybe the ‘made with AI’ label isn’t enough to deter everyone, but it’s enough to kill social media momentum, which is largely how games sell these days.
I’ve been arrested several times putting a crowbar onto anything AI for a while now. From those waiter bots to my now ex-company’s AI servers. A non-relevant game made by a non-relevant dev is an easy skip/boycott from me.
You can sit back and let this stuff collapse under its own weight, you know.
TBH a violent reaction feels like is just going to help politicize this LLM mania (and therefore present an excuse to cement the enshittification). Let people see how awful and annoying it is all by itself.
You should break Meta glasses though. That’s totally warranted.
They honestly should have expected this given peoples visceral reaction to anything AI. Personally, I have huge problems with AI and refuse to play most games that have used it. I think it’s poisoning every creative industry and replacing important jobs while using vague the excuse that it makes things “easier” while making the game soulless in the process. I’m willing to give Larian the benefit of the doubt simply because of their previous games being amazing, but imma wait for the reviews on this one. This game is still going to be in development for another 4 years and none of us will no what’ll happen between then and now, but for now I’ll remain hopefully optimistic
Such a nuanced, unique opinion you have
Most people—even obsessive gamers—don’t give two shits about AI. There’s a very loud minority that gets in everyone’s face saying all AI is evil like we’re John Connor or something. They are so obsessive and extreme about it, it often makes the news (like this article).
The market has already determined that if a game is fun, people will play it. How much AI was used to make it is irrelevant.
I don‘t like to admit it but you‘re likely right. And there are very cool use cases for machine learning if done right. And some of these concepts are already in successful games.
Of course there absolutely is slop that I‘m refusing to buy and companies do face backlash over it. No doubt about it, but that really doesn‘t mean every single use case for AI is bad or makes for a terrible product at all.
But it is interesting to see how much pushback you‘re facing for this comment while most people seem cool with it when Larian does it for some reason. Consumers are hypocrites sometimes.
I’ve yet to meet a single person in real life who isn’t turned off by AI, and there are fewer and fewer of you grifters in the comments these days trying to defend it.
Fuck LLMs and dispersion models, its not art and it’s not even AI.
That’s extreme, and put abrasively.
…But the sentiment isn’t wong.
Except it’s not a small minority anymore, which is understandable given how pervasive chatbot enshittification is becoming. Maybe the ‘made with AI’ label isn’t enough to deter everyone, but it’s enough to kill social media momentum, which is largely how games sell these days.
I’ve been arrested several times putting a crowbar onto anything AI for a while now. From those waiter bots to my now ex-company’s AI servers. A non-relevant game made by a non-relevant dev is an easy skip/boycott from me.
…Yeah. That’s a bit extreme.
You can sit back and let this stuff collapse under its own weight, you know.
TBH a violent reaction feels like is just going to help politicize this LLM mania (and therefore present an excuse to cement the enshittification). Let people see how awful and annoying it is all by itself.
You should break Meta glasses though. That’s totally warranted.
Yeah did punch a few raybans back in the day, may or may not be meta ones tho oops.
Ain’t no action like direct action.
Cool story
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