AI designer programs have reportedly cut the illustration job market by a whopping 70%. Gaming fans are revolted at the results as they call AI designed games to be soulless and cheap.
Three big names, namely, Tencent, Netease and HoYoverse are under heavy criticism for their excessive use of AI generated art in recent games. In addition to the big trio, several indie developers are facing complaints from their fans as well.
An increasing number of game companies have switched to AI image generation. Commercial models such as Dall E and Midjourney have spiked in popularity due to their ability to generate images very quickly. They are cheaper than hiring human illustrators, but they aren’t perfect! In a market as competitive as gaming, these mistakes don’t go unnoticed.
Netease even had an event in march where they publicly used an AI image generator to create illustrations for character skins in Naraka: Bladepoint. The Chinese gaming community heavily opposed calling the designs bleak, cheap and incomplete.
Tencent faced a huge backlash after using AI to generate parts of a poster from Alchemy Stars. The gaming giant was forced to publicly apologize for their actions and went on to promise their fans that it will not happen again. According to Tencent, all such major illustrations will not be streamed to prove their “human-Authenticity”.
Similar instances were reported all across China causing public outrage amongst gamers as they felt “cheated”. In addition to game enthusiasts, illustrators and designers are firing back at AI for layoffs. According to Xu Yingying, layoffs are very real with tons of co-artists losing their jobs this year. An art that took ten people to design now takes just a few seconds and AI!
