“Gen Z loves AI slop,” a video game executive claimed, sparking a heated debate over the prevalence of generative AI within the industry.
“Despite the anti-AI sentiment seen in various articles, consumers generally don’t seem to care,” Jacob Navok, CEO of interactive video game company Genvid and former Square Enix board member, said in a recent tweet.
Navok cited Steal a Brainrot as the “biggest game of the year,” which, as the name suggests, was full of sloppy AI characters. The game is based on the hugely popular online gaming platform Roblox, and last month became the first game to reach more than 25 million concurrent players on any platform.
“Gen Z loves AI slop and doesn’t care,” Navok wrote. “The next generation of gamers is like Bane in The Dark Knight Rises saying, ‘You just adopted the slope, I was born on the slope.’ ”
The executive’s inflammatory remarks sparked a heated debate. So just because people are playing a game called “Steal a Brainrot” they’re voting for AI slop?
As companies double down on their use of generative AI, audiences are often left out of the trend, sparking widespread outcry.
The use of AI, especially in video games, is already facing a number of headwinds. Most recently, the developers of a hugely popular third-person extraction shooter called Arc Raiders came under fire for using AI to generate the voices of their characters, sparking a debate about AI replacing human voice actors and human creativity as a whole.
This week, the developers of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 were heavily criticized for featuring shoddy AI-generated artwork that shamelessly plagiarizes the style of iconic Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli.
And Ubisoft, the publisher of Assassin’s Creed, was forced to remove delayed AI-generated artwork for its new game Anno 117: Pax Romana after widespread backlash.
Nevertheless, Novak said the industry’s adoption of generative AI is inevitable and gamers should prepare for more challenges ahead.
“I would like to add that in-game art and audio are just the tip of the spear,” he wrote in a tweet. “Many studios I know are using AI generation in the concept stage, and many more are using AI generation. [Anthropic’s AI chatbot] The code is Claude. ”
Novak argued that “many of the emotions in AI are driven by emotion, not logic.”
Understandably, these accusations were offensive to many. After all, it’s certainly a stretch to jump from “This Roblox game has a lot of concurrent players” to “Gen Z loves AI slop.”
“Posts without nuance are just bait,” one user responded.
Some accused Novak of comparing apples to oranges.
“Just because McDonald’s has thousands of locations around the world doesn’t mean people aren’t interested in good food,” another user added.
“Comparing Roblox games to Steam games, [average revenue per user] Another user wrote: “Anything over $30 is wrong. It’s like comparing a car to a bike.”
Another user argued that “a well-made game (or any other media) will be accepted and loved.” “Doing it poorly doesn’t matter how many non-AI stickers you put on it.”
“Yet here we are, and the overriding conclusion for all creatives in this field must be the unequivocal conclusion that self-respect and Twitter wars do not translate into happy viewers,” they added.
Despite widespread backlash, many gaming executives remain convinced that AI slop is the future. For example, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson recently said it was “the very core” of the company’s business and could give developers “richer colors” to paint “more vivid worlds.”
Sure, there are many ways to implement AI in video game development, such as AI-generated code, but given that an entire generation “loves AI slop,” it’s probably not as controversial as replacing human voice acting. At best, this seems like a major simplification, and at worst, a provocation.
Moreover, not all gaming executives are convinced that exciting games full of AI slop are the future.
Case in point: John Buckley, CEO of video game developer Pocketpair, announced last month that the company “doesn’t believe” in AI-generated games.
“We’re very upfront about it,” he said game developer. “If you’re into AI, or your game is Web3, or you’re using NFTs, there are a lot of publishers out there. [who’ll talk to you]but we are not the right partner for that. ”
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