But I think sooner or later some notable game will be the first to be popularly perceived as having being made with AI, and will get pilloried for it.
I'm not sure if it counts, but Palworld was loudly (and as it turns out, falsely) accused of having been made with AI and the collective response of players was more or less "go away we're having fun."
Yeah very true, but there I think the game was already about at it's peak popularity when the rumor went around. But if there was something like a DLC for a big-name franchise, and similar rumors go around a few weeks before it releases, I feel like it'll be a different story.
(Particularly if it's a big-name franchise that's hated by a sizeable subset of gamers.. but that's every big-name franchise 
)
Stellaris has openly used it for some of its recent DLC, and Sins of a Solar Empire 2 openly used it, though neither are really big-name in the way I think you're talking.
There was some grumbling about it in both cases in various discussion spaces about the games, but I don't remember either getting anything I'd call a major pushback. I also don't remember if either spoke up about it before release, so not sure if there was a pre-release rumor phase for them.
The Stellaris team also went about it in a way that fit the theme of the content they were making, and the voice actors were/are paid royalties for it as well.
Cool, thanks for the link!
re: Ethical training
I mentioned in a discussion with friends over on FB about Wizards of the Coast using AI on the stuff they own 100% to create modules and adventures and how it would be OK as long as they stayed with the stuff they own all the rights to 100% and didn't hoover up everything else.
You would have thought I was suggesting we go back in time and kill Gary Gygax while he was a baby.
Last weeks Conference Call had a real interesting discussion between Rich and the lead negotiator for the part of SAG that deals with voice-actors and image-actors with respect to video games.
Even once you get past the plagiarism problem by training your LLM only on input that you own outright and/or have licensed specifically for that purpose from its creator, you're left with with the problem that the fruits of automation go only to the owner class, never the working class.
All of which is to say that it's still unethical, just the same kind of unethical as the rest of capitalism.
Even once you get past the plagiarism problem by training your LLM only on input that you own outright and/or have licensed specifically for that purpose from its creator, you're left with with the problem that the fruits of automation go only to the owner class, never the working class.
All of which is to say that it's still unethical, just the same kind of unethical as the rest of capitalism.
Not an expert but I thought that the first L in LLM means that you can only have a half-decent one with an absurdly largely learning corpus?
Not an expert but I thought that the first L in LLM means that you can only have a half-decent one with an absurdly largely learning corpus?
Yes, though the P in GPT is the direct culprit. Loosely, a modern gen-AI has two different kinds of training - a first stage where it's trained on masses of anything and everything (web scrapes, novels, reddit comments..), and a second stage where it's trained on small amounts of whatever the trainer wants it to emulate (like the text that OpenAI pays/paid Nigerians to write). And the first stage is what uses the absurdly large corpus, and it also makes way more difference on the quality of the model.
But debates about this stuff get very muddy - since anyone talking realistically about "training only on your own data" is likely referring to the second kind of training (whether or not they know it), and somebody talking about infringement is likely talking about the first kind.
Microsoft lays off 650 more Xbox employees
Microsoft is laying off around 650 employees in its gaming division today. The latest cuts come months after Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees, and after the closure of several game studios, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin.Xbox chief Phil Spencer announced the layoffs to employees in an internal memo this morning, seen by The Verge. The cuts are related to the Activision Blizzard deal, and Spencer makes it clear in his email that “no games, devices or experiences are being cancelled” and no studios are being closed as part of the layoffs today.
Consolidation sure is great for workers and customers.
Yeah, if no devices, games, or experiences are being cancelled they must have only laid off the useless people in customer support and QA.
According to the Hollywood Reporter and Bloomberg, prolific videogame publisher Annapurna Interactive has functionally collapsed, with its senior leadership team and the entirety of its over 20-person staff resigning. The shocking move leaves the future of Annapurna's active development deals in question.Annapurna Interactive is a subsidiary of Annapurna Pictures, a prolific production company owned and founded by Megan Ellison, daughter of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The games division was opened up in 2016 under the auspices of some industry veterans, and hit the ground running, publishing influential independent games like Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, Neon White, and Stray.
The Hollywood Reporter was first to the news, covering the departure of senior executives at Annapurna, including company president Nathan Gary. Gary was one of those founding industry veterans of the interactive division, and, since 2021, the president of Annapurna Pictures overall. Gary is being replaced as president by Hector Sanchez, another founding member of Annapurna Interactive who recently returned from a stint at Epic.
Jason Schreier's report for Bloomberg is where things get interesting: According to Schreier's anonymous sources, Gary had been in negotiations with Megan Ellison to spin off Annapurna Interactive as its own company, separate from Annapurna Pictures. The mass resignation of Gary, his leadership team, and Annapurna Interactive's entire staff was in response to Ellison pulling out of these negotiations.
A spokesperson for Annapurna confirmed to Bloomberg that the negotiations had fallen through, and Megan Ellison provided the following statement:
"Our top priority is continuing to support our developer and publishing partners during this transition. We're committed to not only our existing slate of games but also expanding our presence in the interactive space as we continue to look for opportunities to take a more integrated approach to linear and interactive storytelling across film and TV, gaming, and theater."
This situation naturally seems to be wreaking havoc for Annapurna-published dev teams. Bloomberg reports that these developers have been scrambling to determine if their publishing partnerships are still valid and workable. Aura Triolo, animation lead on the Annapurna-published game Wanderstop, summed it up thusly on BlueSky: "*currently being published by Annapurna voice* haha."
Notably, Alan Wake 2 developer Remedy's recently-announced partnership with Annapurna on the future of the Control series is unaffected by this development, as the deal was with parent company Annapurna Pictures and not the interactive subsidiary.
While details are still scarce, the staff exodus is an absolutely shocking detail, and likely unprecedented in the history of the industry. During a time of mass layoffs and contraction in games, the staff at Annapurna willingly left their jobs, seemingly with no notice given, over the prospect of the publisher remaining a subsidiary of Annapurna Pictures.
Hope they start up a new company together free from the parent company. Annapurna released good stuff.
That’s a shock. Annapurna Interactive has definitely published some gems.
Hope they start up a new company together free from the parent company. Annapurna released good stuff.
The fact that they all quit en masse is a good sign that they’ll start their own company. At least I hope they do.
Sounds like the spinoff talks blew up so everyone quit.
Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary and his team were reportedly negotiating with Ellison to spin-off the division, which publishes video games, into an independent entity. But when Ellison pulled out of the negotiations, Gary and other executives resigned, followed by around two dozen staff.
A spokesperson for Annapurna Interactive confirmed to Bloomberg that it explored spinning off the company into an independent entity, but the two parties failed to reach an agreement, leading to the resignations.
Yes, that was in what Ratboy quoted.
Jason Schreier's report for Bloomberg is where things get interesting: According to Schreier's anonymous sources, Gary had been in negotiations with Megan Ellison to spin off Annapurna Interactive as its own company, separate from Annapurna Pictures. The mass resignation of Gary, his leadership team, and Annapurna Interactive's entire staff was in response to Ellison pulling out of these negotiations.
Ah sorry missed that paragraph when scanning. Saw on Twitter and came to share. Guess I'm 2 hours late
Interesting to note that Megan Ellison's brother David runs Skydance which is in the long and crazy process of purchasing Paramount Pictures.
They must really hate the boss.
Hope they start up a new company together free from the parent company. Annapurna released good stuff.
No insult to the group that just left, but the power that Annapurna had was that they didn't have to worry about money. I wonder how viable that group is without a sugar mommy backing them.
So I ask this out of ignorance - does the staff of a publisher take anything with when they walk out?
Staff of a developer all leave, you've lost the creative talent that made that developer. Does the same apply to a publisher, or are they more easily replaced? Like I have no idea what the day to day work of a publisher is, how much skill and finesse there is to it vs "job that can be done by an easily replaced warm body".
Hope they start up a new company together free from the parent company. Annapurna released good stuff.
I don't doubt that they will. That's why everyone quit en masse. But I'm not sure that I'm willing to cheer them for doing so. None of them have honoured their notice periods. And - as Schreier says - they've left in the shit the developers with whom Annapurna Interactive has publishing contracts.
At the end of the day, this is just about money. The MBO side likely made an offer. The ownership side likely didn't accept. And after some to-ing and fro-ing, the MBO side decided to torpedo the company that they worked for, and leave... presumably to set themselves up in direct competition.
This may be entirely legal (though I'm sure Annapurna's lawyers are watching developments with interest), but it may also be ethically dubious.
So I ask this out of ignorance - does the staff of a publisher take anything with when they walk out?
Staff of a developer all leave, you've lost the creative talent that made that developer. Does the same apply to a publisher, or are they more easily replaced? Like I have no idea what the day to day work of a publisher is, how much skill and finesse there is to it vs "job that can be done by an easily replaced warm body".
I'll do what I can here, since I work for a game publisher (Amazon Games). It's a small staff, the QA team I work with is bigger than that whole company, for example. There's likely Marketing, Community Management, Business Development, QA, Release Management and a few glue roles like producers, maybe HR, office management/admin but their size makes me doubt some of those.
A cohesive publishing team is a game accelerator and I think resigning together shows they have that cohesion. With the right partners they can do a lot quickly. If I were developing an indie game and they get some financial backing I'd partner with them easy.
So I ask this out of ignorance - does the staff of a publisher take anything with when they walk out?
Staff of a developer all leave, you've lost the creative talent that made that developer. Does the same apply to a publisher, or are they more easily replaced? Like I have no idea what the day to day work of a publisher is, how much skill and finesse there is to it vs "job that can be done by an easily replaced warm body".
In addition to the function's Poly mentions, the less easily "replaceable" part is the relationships and trust of the people who actually control the money and who are developing the game. Using his case (since AMZN is a lot bigger than annapurna), while the decision to say invest $100M in a property is ultimately up to someone in a C-suite at Amazon, those c-suiters have to trust the Amazon Games publishing team to have vetted and done the legwork. Going downwards, the relationship between the publisher and the development stduio is also very important. That relationship will define how the developer will be able to ask for more time/money, or how the publisher will ask for less time/money.
Appreciate your insights, chaps!
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