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.
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”?
Very “if we stopped testing for COVID there would be no cases” energy.
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.
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.
I don’t get it, if AI is so great and the future, wouldn’t you be happy to disclose your use of it in your product?
Transparency sucks
– Every snakeoil salesman everWeird way to admit they’re using AI, but OK.
Their next engine has AI baked into its very core!
Hmm… Do I side with Epic, famous for:
- Apple app store lawsuit because they didn’t get enough of the profit
- Google play lawsuit, ditto.
- Paying publishers to release games exclusively on Epic Games Store, pushing up prices to gamers.
- Many allegations by former allegations about toxic work culture, very long working hours, especially “crunch” times leading to burnout and mental health issues.
- Aggressive loot boxing and monetization of games specifically targetting children.
- Having to settle a lawsuit with the FTC for $275m to escape prosecution for breaching children’s privacy laws and forced to issue a further $245m in refunds to customers who were victims of “dark patterns” employed by Epic.
Or with Steam?
Tim Sweeney claims it’s a “Scarlet Letter” which makes players “try to kill the game”
Yes, and?
I bet sketchy food producers also balked at the idea of ingredient lists when they were first rolled out. If you’re offering something to others and think they might not like something you used in it, maybe it’s better to avoid the thing rather than complain that you’re being forced to tell people about it.
He thinks his game won’t sell because it has the AI scarlet letter but if he doesn’t use it, his competition would have an edge over him because they use AI.
Does he realize how stupid he sounds since they would then have the scarlet letter of AI and his game wouldn’t and would then sell better.
It’s still stupid, but he’s talking about review bombing forthcoming AI games across all platforms because they disclosed on steam vs forthcoming AI games that aren’t listed on steam that don’t disclose on other platforms.
I can’t even get mad, I find it genuinely funny that that’s the argument he came up with to elaborate on why AI disclosure mandates are irresponsible.
It’s full-on “no one reads past the headline anyway” effort-level without understanding that people who read past the headline are his only possible reachable demographic, because not looking past the headline is defaulting to the easy assumption that Epic is just spewing garbage.
ah ok, what’s next? should we stop steam from forcing games to have their publisher’s name linked to a game? Having “EA” on your game is a bit like a Scarlet Letter. But that’s not fair, having a big publisher can help you get it as widely publicized as possible!
ah ok, what’s next? should we stop steam from forcing games to have their bad reviews linked to a game? Having bad reviews on your game is a bit like a Scarlet Letter. But that’s not fair, having a bad reviews makes it harder to get it as widely publicized as possible!
ah ok, what’s next? should we stop steam from forcing games to have their price linked to a game? Having high margin prices shown publicly on your game is a bit like a Scarlet Letter. But that’s not fair, revealing the full price after the user has already made emotional commitments can help you get it as widely publicized as possible!
honestly, if I show up at tacobell, and like instead of fake high sodium meat, they give me like horse gizzards mixed with grinded scorpian tail based salts and protein derived from dried skunk carcases, why the fuck would I have the right to know that less than 10% of it is actually beef?
that would hurt sales and market innovation!!!
ah ok, what’s next? should we stop steam from DRM disclosure too? Knowing Denuvo is used is a bad look, because lot of people don’t like it.
“we should be able to lie and sneak ai in. If they found out they wouldnt want it, and the people paying for it shouldnt have any say in the matter”
Utterly deranged take, as expected from him
Its deeply irresponsible to humanity that Epic Games exists and I have to hear a CEO’s opinions
AI content is so loathed and despised that the influencers, film studios, software developers who have embraced it are simultaneously all desperate to downplay, lie and hide it.
But definitely not a speculation bubble! Keep repeating to yourselves that demand for AI is real and that people really value all the nauseating disgusting chatbot generated “art” and “insight” that you’re spewing upon humanity.
