A Valve artist has defended AI disclosures on storefronts like Steam, saying they only scare those with “low effort” products.
I look at it the same way I look at game engines. It’s a tool, which if used in the production of the game should be disclosed and let people decide if they want to buy that product or not.
Yes, we should celebrate transparency. Even if every game includes Ai in development in some shape or form, its good to know what exactly was done. In some cases its even a little less harmless or even acceptable (like generating meaningless terrain) than in other cases.
Tim sure is an odd dog. I just don’t get where this unearned confidence to shit talk comes from.
Money. Money is where it comes from.
“I am rich, therefore my opinion is valid and you should listen to me”
EXTREMELY LOUD ‘INCORRECT’ BUZZER
Yes but
pays the buzzer guy to play the “correct” sound effect
good response from Valve
I’m a one man team making a game.
It’s a management game and indirectly you control characters, which you don’t see as in-game models because instead you control the ships they’re in or you order them to work in specific positions in the space station.
I would like to actually have distinct recognizable characters with their own voices so that players can identify with them, like them and not want to lose them.
So I would like to have character cards with portraits and as much as possible unique character voices, and given that the game’s visuals are toward the realistic side, the portraits would be in a realistic style.
This means around 100+ realistic portraits and distinct voices.
As a one man team I can’t actually do this without AI - not enough funds for hiring 100 voice actors, not enough skill to do that kind of design or funds to hire somebody who will do 100 realistic distinct portraits.
So either I seriously trim down that feature (say, their speech is text only, and they have no portraits at all) or I use AI image generation and voice generation.
It’s simply not possible to do certain features at a certain level if you’re a small indie - unlike a big games company, I neither have the skill to do it myself (or in the case of the multiple voices, physically can’t), the employees to do it for me or the funds to pay for freelancers to do it, given how much work that involves.
I’ll probably try multiple options and see which works best. Maybe I’ll use AI for it, maybe I’ll cut down that feature to the point that all you have is an name and written text (essentially making the whole idea of players liking some characters nonviable), maybe I’ll find some middle way that avoids AI.
That said, I support disclosing that AI was used in making the game, ideally if it lets me list where an how it was used.
As a customer, I feel I should be able to make an informed decision when buying something, so it’s only fair that the same applies to my potential customers. As I see it, it should be up to gamers to decide if and how much they care about AI having been used in making a game.
all you have is an name and written text (essentially making the whole idea of players liking some characters nonviable)
People have favourite characters in books and text-only games all the time - don’t sell yourself short on your ability to write compelling characters before you’ve tried and failed
deleted by creator
Yes, that’s what I’m considering and that’s my point of view.
As I wrote at the end of my post, I totally agree with full disclosure as I think buyers are entitled to make an informed decision and many people feel that the use of AI in making a game is something that makes a difference in their purchasing decision.
I’m not so sure it’s devs wanting to hide that they’re using AI. I think is more of a mix of AI use having become an ideological subject for some people (for understandable reasons given the veritable shitshow of speculative investment, fraud and deceit around it, not to mention that many AI models - especially the corporate ones - are trained on other people’s work against the will of those people) and some are absolutist about it to the point of irrationality (that part is less understandable), and many if not most of those making and selling games not wanting to lose a single sale not matter what.
Whilst I hold the principle that buyers should know what they’re getting before they buy it (and I try to be fair on it rather than wanting it for myself alone, so that means that principle also applies to my potential customers and I’m willing to lose sales for that), mine is a one-person Indie, so the company is me and follows my principles. Some in the industry do not hold such principles or just work in or lead companies which they do not own, so instead they push for the option that maximizes profit, and that’s getting the upsides on both sides - one one side using AI to reduce manpower costs AND on the other not losing the sales of customers who are against AI use like that, which would happen if they were informed about it, so they don’t want mandatory disclosure.
If it’s ideological, wouldn’t it be worse if someone buys the game only to later find out that you used generative ai to make it?
I have the impression that most, if not all, of AAA companies don’t care about gamers getting disappointed after they bought the game.
That’s why the “If it is ideological” prefix to the sentence is important ;)
People who don’t want AI slop and who buy AAA games don’t overlap that much
That’s not the point. People fall in love with poorly drawn characters, bad voice acting, and even some times poorly written stories. It’s all about how creative you are. You only rob yourself of the ability to improve or tell an honest story.
And that’s fair. No one is saying you can’t use it just that it should be listed.
Also, if I read something like your post on the description of a game, I wouldn’t hold it against it. LLMs as a tool to make working class people’s lives easier is great. I’m against it when greedy fucks use it to exclude workers from the process.
You could write the base game without AI, then add the extended AI resources as a DLC pack
That’s actually a very interesting way to tackle the whole thing and opens up an even broader scope than it seems at first sight.
The base game has simple text-only character “speech” with no portraits.
AI generated character portraits with AI-generated voices is a free DLC released alongside the game.
For my specific case there would be no gameplay differences in having or not the DLC installed, only a simpler or fancier version of character interaction.
Also given that some of that stuff is going to be a lot of voice recordings, it makes the base game much smaller.
Its give gamers a choice, which is as it should be IMHO, and it also gives me feedback on how many people would rather have a less fancy version without AI generated elements over having a fancier version with AI generated elements.
This is definitely a good way to go; not only does it decouple the AI generated assets from the game, but in doing so lets you get a picture of how important they are to your players. It might be that everyone grabs the DLC despite it being AI generated, or it might be that a large chunk avoid it because of that. That would be useful information for your next game.
That said, I support disclosing that AI was used in making the game
Which was the whole point of the original post.
You don’t need 100 voice actors. A decent voice actor can do multiples voices. But it would still be expensive.
Do you really need 100 differents voices? Even AAA games with large budget probably have less voices, focusing on the most important characters.
Games often use tricks, showing text/subtiles instead of actual voices, and inserting random “hum” / “clear throat” / whistle sounds to make the interaction more lively, avoid complete silence.
I guess you’re not making a typical game and voice synthesis might make sense for your game. Hopefully you can specify somewhere you’re using AI for voice only, not for storyline nor other artwork, to reassure players.
Look at town to city, their characters are like four voxels wide and have plenty of character. You can go the AI route but I think the art would always end up just looking like it’s AI, always just a little bit off. It all depends on the style of your game.
If you’re going the photo realistic route you can still do it without AI, just use something like metahumans or one of the many equivalents.
It’s not seen often that Valve reacts to public comments.
Valve hasn’t reacted.
It’s a Valve employee.
“Opinions are my own” - his Twitter bio. Which shouldn’t need to be said, but here we are.
So we should ignore that he works at Valve?
in the sense that valve has nothing to do with this… yes
I do not agree. While it was not an official statement, he still works at Valve. So his opinion is connected to Valve. We should not ignore that. He is not ANY developer. The only thing is, I should have made that more clear in my initial reply, but I think its not really needed because we know the context he is a developer on his own private account. But I would not ignore that.
I can’t imagine the other artists and eccentrics that work at Valve would disagree with this guy tho.
BrikoX, this is unsponsored opinions, change the title.
