Tim Sweeney claims it’s a “Scarlet Letter” which makes players “try to kill the game”
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has criticised rival Valve for forcing studios to disclose when they use AI in game development.
Epic recently showed how it was integrating AI into Unreal Engine 6.
Time Sweeney said:
“If you want to launch a game, and get it as widely publicized as possible, you’ve got to put it on Steam so people can wish list it, and if you want to play it on Steam, then you have to get this Scarlet Letter of AI attached to your product, and now there is a hater community trying to kill the game.
“I think it’s really irresponsible of Valve. They shouldn’t do it, because it makes it much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success. You have to choose from either not using tools that can make you way more productive, and probably failing due to competition that does.”
Which is totally ignoring the factor that the user should know about the purchase it makes and be able to decide for themselves. Transparency for the player is not a bad thing.
Epic games can shove it’s corporate opinion up it’s own corporate ass.
Epic Games CEO can go fuck himself!
If what Steam does is such a problem for everyone involved, why doesn’t Sweeny make a better product himself then?
Oh, he has but it’s worse?
Whould’ve thought!
Remember when Epic Games Store launched and Tim defended the barebones functionality and quality, in comparison to how Steam launched barebones back then? That was his justification. Having real competition is a good thing, but it has to be a competition, not exclusivity. GOG does a good job and providing value.
Epic lacked a search bar and a shopping basket for months after launch. He compared his 2018 product with a 2003 product and still lost.
While I think I understand what he means with regards to catching hate for being marked “AI”. I think it should be marked, but give a scale of sorts. Then it is easier for people to decide what things they are “okay” with vs what they aren’t. Like “AI voice over” is different than a game done “Mostly/completely AI”. Which would also help the random people that really like AI to find games using it (obviously that crowd is niche).
Maybe allow marking in detail elements that are AI place holders for Early Access games, where the dev is a small team or single person (no excuse for AAA games with huge budgets). The context matters, and people that don’t want any AI would already be leaving really bad reviews when they find out AI was used at all (along with demanding refunds). Could even be good for those Early Access games to find people to work with in replacing the place holders if people see things are still needed and reach out.
Would also be good if the same kind of scale markers could be applied to games that don’t use AI but do use pre-made assets. Not like AI is the only cause for all the slop games.
My god!
A well thought out and reasoned opinion? I can’t believe it took me this long to leave reddit!Honestly, if visual elements are ai created I am not sure I even care. AI is (now) really good at that and if it saves the devs weeks or months of drawing graphics that they can spend on the story or the action of a game, I (so far) think I am ok with that.
lol I’ll take the vote of approval! Currently the topic gets boiled down to “everything AI is slop” automatically, but removes situations where it can be used as a tool in a more “correct” sense. I would be happy if devs/studios started using it on some level to help bring back real optimizations so some games would actually use hardware to the fullest. And not just rely on people just constantly buying new GPUs or feel like the high-end hardware is a requirement.
Just need to make sure to test and re-test the results, and maybe good devs would actually go back to see how the optimizations were done to try doing it themselves (and not just get lazy/dumb in their own code). The cash grab vibe-coded slop stuff should be called out at all times. Just like the pre-AI asset flipping shit that was already flooding stores. Would also be great if bad reviews call out specific issues and not just blanket say “AI crap” or something like that to help other people have a better picture of things.
God forbid we give consumers the ability to make informed decisions.
Fellas, is it woke to vote with your wallet?
“If you want to launch a
gamesnack, and get it as widely publicized as possible, you’ve got to put it onSteamstore shelves so people canwish listsee it and if you want toplay it on Steameat ot, then you have to get this Scarlet Letter ofAIingredients attached to your product, and now there is a hater community [of parents] trying to kill thegamesnack. … I think it’s really irresponsible ofValvethe FDA. They shouldn’t do it, because it makes it much, much, much harder for agame developersnack company to have a chance of success. You have to choose from either not using tools that can makeyou way more productiveyour product way more addictive, and probably failing due to competition that does [in less regulated markets?]."Your only problem is that Valve is not the only market.
By a long shot
Yes, that’s part of the parallel. Both videogames and snacks involve multiple markets.
I don’t care that much, but I rather have that information then not.
Tim Sweeney
Fuck him, and fuck Unreal engine.
If disclosing the use of genai will make a game fail, then not using it can’t make studios “fail due to conpetition that does”, because said competition will fail. You just said that, Tim.
You didn’t read correctly. He said that you either have to not use GenAI or fail due to competition that does (not use GenAI). So yeah, that’s as it should be.
Yeah, but just a paragraph before he said that using genai will make your product fail due to boycott. Thus, a game that does not use genai can’t fail to competition that uses it because they themselves will fail.
Why should they fail when the competition fails by default in his argument.
What a piece of shit. Stfu.
Here is a more nuanced argument. Steam marks ai use generally, so even if your game just uses text to speech for accessibility reasons, the hate will immediately go towards ai use even tho nobody would mind it if the rest is handcrafted.
Yes, I wouldn’t mind a more detailed description of how and where AI is used.
They do, but nobody reads that, it gets the ai tag and that’s enough.
Steam lets developers include a description of the AI use, not just whether they used AI. This is the “AI Generated Content Disclosure” for Stellaris:
The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:
We employ generative AI technologies during the creation of some assets. Typically this involves the ideation of content and visual reference material. These elements represent a minor component of the overall development. AI has been used to generate voices for an AI antagonist and a player advisor.
I really want to be a voice actor and that last part makes me so sad. Games and stuff used to be one of the best ways to break into the market
Yes but the ai tag is there and nobody reads that description after seeing ai first. So it is effectively the same.
Yeah I feel like some uses are fine. When it’s used as a tool with thought and consideration.
These giant companies just want to replace people with AI though and flood the market. It would be nice to have more information
Another issue is when using ai without the knowledge, you bought some assets on the store that did not display ai use, steam bans your game.
So, if a dev uses AI, they fail because of haters, but they also win because they’re more productive than devs that don’t?
Being strong and weak at the same time is always a fun rhetoric.
Also, afaik, Valve only asks for disclosure of generative AI for asset generation, not productivity tools like coding assistance.
not productivity tools like coding assistance
Given how Microsoft has really jammed AI code-assist down the throats of developers whether they want it or not, it would be kinda crazy if they did. The “contains AI” tag would be on virtually everything that touches Visual Studio, hollowing out its value as an indicator.
I think that is a valid point. That’s why Valve changed the initial policy. If I remember right, in the beginning it was “Ai” in general, without this distinction. But this is still not 100% clear (even if we assume the devs are not lying). In example is generating code with Visual Studio “generative Ai”?
yeah it sounds like the old immigrant taking your job but also cashing in welfare
Sweeney’s not a fan of informed purchase practices. Good to know, Tim, I’ll make sure to not float any cash your way.
I’m not really surprised. That was clear when they started with the Epic Games Store without user reviews.
Capitalists in general hate information being freely available, because it reduces arbitrage options.
Very “if we stopped testing for COVID there would be no cases” energy.
Usually it’s more responsible to disclose things.
Exactly. It’s like hiding the amount of ingredients on the packaging for food, just because it looks bad and people would boykott it.
