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Tim Sweeney says Epic Games Store is open to devs using generative AI
(www.gamedeveloper.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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As always, when Steam does one thing, Epic does the opposite.
But still, Steam doesn't forbid all AI content. It requires developers to have rights over the content on which it was trained, which seems logical.
And impractical, because that effectively eliminates all popular models I believe
Man this is one legal mess we’re going to have to iron out as a society. I see both sides, obviously a creator doesn’t want their work to be utilized in a way they don’t approve…on the other hand we severely limit ourselves on AI development if we don’t use the collective work of society as a whole. And policing may be a LOT harder than people realize…taking that too far while it protects authors and creatives may ultimately mean falling behind in this area to competitive countries.
For games, at least it kind of makes sense to want to use a model that doesn’t have things trained from libraries or television/movies. You don’t want to be talking to an NPC in a Star Wars game that keeps referencing Harry Potter as an example lol…might be a little immersion breaking haha.
But also, AI usage could bring development a step forward. Indie devs may be able to produce AAA quality experiences on their normal budget, or conversely hobbyist may be able to create Indie-level games.
I see AI bringing us potentially marrying a lot of silos of entertainment in the future. We may move beyond movies, TV shows, gaming into more collective “experiences” that combine the best aspects of all of these mediums.
Idk what the answer is but it’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
I wonder if there are AI models based on Public Domain, and how would that fare under their rule.
There's one model but it's not the greatest quality at the moment, not to undermine that it's an amazing project
https://huggingface.co/Mitsua/mitsua-diffusion-one
Yeah, I was wondering that too. AFAIK not right now, but probably is just a matter of time.
It really just requires a single step of indirection. Instead of indie dev using AI directly, they pay Joe's Asset Shack for their assets which may or may not be generated.
If you train on AI generated art, you get bad results.
Can you explain how that seems logical? It makes it impossible for anyone but the mega-rich to use. AAA developers alone will be able to reap the benefits of generative AI and outcompete indie devs who can't afford models that meet these ridiculous restrictions.
It'll prevent indie artists from having their work plagiarized over and over without payment from indie "devs" who honestly shouldn't have the right to exist as "developers" if they can't afford to actually hire artists and such.
It'd be one thing if they made an agreement to get assets from artists for cheap or for free as a favor, but just plain putting them all out of business permanently by letting a machine steal their work forever is another thing entirely.
I disagree, for several reasons. First off, you'you're trying to paint developers who use generative AI plagiarizing other's work without supporting that claim with any evidence. Then you go on to further and start insulting indie developers by insinuating they're not real devs and have no right to exist. These personal attacks conveniently don't address any merits or drawbacks of using generative AI. You should judge them based on their products, not budget or resources.
You end it all off by arguing a slippery slope of catastrophic consequences without evidence or reasoning for this can even happen. Not only that, but you predict that using generative AI to create content will “put them all out of business permanently by letting a machine steal their work forever”(without a shred of evidence as to how this is even stealing). Without you realizing it, this rule could turn Steam into a corpo-only playground by giving them exclusive use of the most powerful cutting edge tools that can save thousands of staff hours, saving only them wads of cash but also giving them a leg up on learning how to use these tools to enhance their work, discover new forms of expression, or to challenge the boundaries of art.
Your comment is elitist and doesn't reflect the reality or generative AI in game development, and misunderstands our rights to give IP holders more power over creatives than they deserve. I suggest you do some more research and open your mind to the possibilities of generative AI, instead of dismissing it as a threat or a cheat. AI training and use isn't only for mega-corporations. We can already train our own open source models, so we shouldn't let people put up barriers that will keep out all but the ultra-wealthy.
I recommend reading this article by Kit Walsh, who’s a senior staff attorney at the EFF, a digital rights group, who recently won a historic case: border guards now need a warrant to search your phone. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Reading it again in context, your response is at best completely misunderstanding what is being said.
They are not "insulting indie developers by insinuating they’re not real devs and have no right to exist.". They are saying that developers who rely on AI models should compensate the artists whose works trained that model. The model itself can only exist through processing artists' copyrighted works.
As much as you talk of defending the little guy from corporate dominance, it doesn't seem like you are considering the position of game artists, or any other small artists.
Just as that article does, frankly. Not only it seems entirely unconcerned with the realities of artists in a world where AI can replace them, its defense of scraping as "analytical" doesn't seem very sound when the entire purpose is to create derivative works. Lets not forget that law exists, ideally, to protect people. Any argument that alteration to the law would make it worse tends to treat AI as equivalent to human, which it is not and it shouldn't be treated as such.
This is what I meant.
Derivative works doesn't mean what you think it does. You should read the article again because I don't think you took it all in. These are tools made by humans for humans to use. Restricting these models is restricting the rights of the people that use and train them. Mega-corporations will have their own models, no matter the price. What we say and do here will only affect our ability to catch up and stay competitive. And no one is trying to treat AI as equivalent to humans. Humans using machines have always been the copyright holders of any qualifying work they create. AI works are human works. AI can't be authors or hold copyright.
No, our legal definitions simply haven't been made with a consideration towards advances in technology. It is made for a world that has printing presses and photocopiers, not for one where people can and do selectively feed one artists' works into AI without their permission to generate works that are non-identical but clearly intended to be equivalent to that artist's work. There is no other way to call that but derivative.
But while the overall result is more ambiguous as more works are used for training and the prompt doesn't rely on one particular artist, it's much in the same way that a large enough tragedy is a statistic. It's fueled by massive amounts of copyright infringement. The humans who prepared these tools in this way didn't have the right to do it as they did.
That said, this insistence that the only way to be competitive with corporations using AIs is to use AI is questionable. You said your previous comment responded to me but it didn't actually. Why is it that AI would make it or break ot for indie developers that can make do without the massive production teams and expensive tools that AAA studios have? Why is this what would drive them out when all the other advantages AAA studios have didn't? I find it very unlikely that the personal craftsmanship in indie works will cease to be appealing.
Besides, AI could be ethically trained by using works in the Public Domain and Creative Commons. So it's not even like the only options are being complicit to ripping off artists or being cut off from this tool.
I think you're replying to me in two different comments. Let's try to consolidate this.
True. I just responded to the other one but if you want to continue, we can do it here.
Indie games have been able to compete just fine without generative AI, even though in average AAA games already are much more grandiose productions.
See my latest comment. Part of it addresses what you said.
Your comment doesn't address what I said in any way whatsoever. Especially as far as respecting indie developers go.
To restate it, indie developers already manage to find success even though AAA studios already have a massive advantage in production. If they don't have access to generative AI, that's only going to keep things as they already are.
Keep in mind, above everything else, what draws people towards indie games is the developers' vision. While AAA studios can resort to have hyper-realistc, intricately rendered graphics, orchestral music and hundreds of thousands of lines of text, indie games still manage to find their appeal through simple visuals, more personal music and writing. The personal touch and daring vision gives them an appeal that most corporate productions fail to capture. Frankly, your insinuation that access to AI is going to make it or break it for them, that if not for that they are all but doomed to be replaced by corporate AI driven works, doesn't seem to value the work that they already do.
Big developers don't have to just increase the scope of their games, they could just as easily make many small teams that can each work on their own smaller games. You appear to have a very narrow view of what generative AI can do for game development. You assume it isn't good for creating the types of things that makes indie games appealing, rather you can only create cold corporate schlock with it. It can also help with simple visuals, personal music, and writing (this link is possibly NSFW). You can also create with it procedural content, landscapes, dungeons, quests, and characters in your style.
Generative AI can help indie developers save time and money, increase their scope and variety, and give them the time to experiment with new ideas and genres. They can also reach a wider audience, by helping with content in different languages and cultures. They could also help collaborate with other developers, artists, and players, by sharing and remixing content.
I think you're missing the point of generative AI. You are ignoring the fact that generative AI isn't a monolithic entity, but a diverse, evolving field of research and practice.
There was never anything stopping them from doing that without AI. They don't do it because their executives and investors want the large Return on Investment that they can only get with big blockbusters. They don't care to take over the indie scene because it's often focused on titles that are niche and risky.
Even if you are correct about the capabilities of AI, and to be clear I do believe you are mostly correct, it's an overstatement to talk of it as if it will replace all other disciplines. It's almost like saying there is no more purpose for drawing now that we have photography, and nobody can thrive if not for photography. Even if AI is widely adopted there will still be plenty of space for works made without it.
Really, I'm not entirely opposed to AI but the mindset here is definitely one I cannot gel with, one that making more, larger, faster art is more worthwhile than making it yourself. Even if AI could make whole characters and settings in someone's style, the people working on it often want to make it themselves. An AI can't condense all your inspirations and personality and the meaning you would put into a work for you. AI does not even truly understand what it does, it's only providing a statistics-based output. Even the best, most complex, most truly intelligent AI imaginable is not replacement for an artist, because it isn't that artist.
Ultimately AI still seems to serve better to expansive games that need to be filled with a lot of content than small works of passion.
There's a possibility the profit margins could just get that juicy. You could have a skeleton crew work on a game for a shorter amount of time and get it out there making money.
AI can't create anything itself, it's a tool to help artists create explore, expedite, and improve. An AI can't condense all of your inspirations and personality and meaning in the same way a drawing tablet can't. It's all in how you use it. You can infuse it with your learned experiences at training, guidance, inference, and post-processing to make it more closely adhere to your statistics.
We've been talking about indie game devs this whole time, but we haven't even touched on amateur games devs. For small scale, I think this is where we'll see the biggest impact. People with fewer or no skills might get the helping hand they need to fill the gaps in their knowledge and get started.
This is pure speculation, and a very iffy one at that. Large game companies keep betting on larger and larger projects, distancing themselves from niche genres. It's a huge leap to go from "maybe they will try to make smaller games with AI", which is already speculation, to "indie devs won't be able to survive if they don't use AI too".
The tablet can be a neutral medium, an AI is trying to condense the outwardly obvious stylistic choices of countless other artists, without an understanding of the underlying ideas that guided them, while you are trying to wrestle something somewhat close to your vision out of it. I suppose that's like being a director, but it inherently means the result less personal. What decided the shapes and colors? What decided the wording and tone? Who can say.
I'd say today there are easy enough tools that getting started is fairly easy, but there's some merit to that. Still... that bumps with the uncomfortable possibility that if AI is widely adopted, there will be less game developer and artist jobs available. Sure, more people could get their start, but could they actually get any further than that?
Square Enix, one of the biggest game publishers in the world, has several divisions that make gacha games for mobile platforms. These games are very profitable, and almost every one of them is developed in house. These games don't compete with or replace their AAA games, and they keep on making them, so it must be good enough. It's almost a requirement for there to be a mobile game of the latest Square-Enix game.
Don't underestimate what you can do with fine-tuning. There's more to guidance than just text prompts.
That I can't say, but I hate that this tool with boundless potential to revolutionize the way we communicate, inspire, create, and connect with each other out of the gate has people attacking it with saws trying to get it to fit into the curtain rod shaped box of capitalism. It's a sorry state. Maybe more people will follow cottage creators with a vision they find appealing, like on OnlyFans and Patreon? We're social creatures, we like having shared experiences in that way. Hell, maybe collaborative projects like SCP in the future.
Did you know that mobile freemium games already surpassed console games in revenue? Sure they may be cheaper to produce, but they are not niche or low in Return of Investment, much the opposite. This does not even vaguely correlate with a total indie market takeover.
However many examples you may pick, it still doesn't make the tech able to make works exactly as the user envisions, and it isn't based on their own internalized inspirations and personality the same way. If anything, using established popular characters and styles as an example indicates that you aren't quite grasping what I'm getting at, about the unique characteristics that each artist puts in their work, sometimes even unwittingly. I don't doubt that AI could perfectly make infinite Mickeys. This isn't about making more Mickeys. So to speak, it's about making less Mickeys and more of something entirely new.
I'm not usually this radical, but putting it bluntly, either AI or Capitalism has to go. If not like this, I wouldn't see any issue with this easier way to get some form of guided aid for artistic expression, leaving aside its limitations and the matter of scraping for a moment. Both of them together, we'll see artists and game developers driven out of their industries, not to mention all the other artistic, customer service and intelectual jobs that will soon be replaced to optimize profits for executives and investors. None of this would be a concern if everyone could just work on their passion projects and have a guaranteed livelihood, but that's not how it works as it is.
More crowdfunding as a solution? On whose wages? Making it that way is already a rare luck, before any larger issues. But what if everyone used AI? Well, that wouldn't really make the potential customers any more numerous. It would, however, make the number of artists and developers needed less numerous. So, how do they make a living then? What good is it if an artist has to take some sweatshop job to survive because AI is now making works in their style for free?
But I admit that the AI genie probably can't be put back in the bottle, now that it's already so widespread with no legal repercussion. But it's a battle that will get much uglier, and resentment is the least that we will have to worry about. No wonder, because it's going to suck for a lot of people.
You're moving the goalposts here, your original comment asserted that large companies only bet on larger and larger games, and when you have this many mobile games out at once, a lot of them are going to be pretty niche. Currently, gacha is the go-to for small development for large companies, it's not out of the realm of possibility for lower costs to lead to more traditional games to me.
I'm not sure what you believe generative tools are supposed to do. This is just one tool in a chest of many, it isn't going to pop out fully finished work. You need to work with what you make. It also isn't a requirement to use established characters, I picked things with distinctive characteristics, the characters are just a touchstone for people to evaluate how well those characteristics are transferred. This can work just as well for anyone, I've seen people fine tune with just nine images.
Preach, I nominate we get of capitalism.
Would be nice if there was any headway in that sense but it seems we just get more and more reasons why society can't keep going like this, but it keeps going like this.
I did not move goalposts one inch. You are thinking of mobile games as "small games" when in fact they are more profitable than console games. I specifically contrasted "niche" to "blockbuster". Candy Crush may be simple but it's one of the the most profitable game of all time, it is not niche. Even something like Final Fantasy Dissidia Opera Omnia surpassed 100 million dollars in revenue, which would be a huge fortune for the average, mildly sustainable indie. If you look at them solely in terms of how costly they are to develop you are missing the point.
They are not going to be making, say, psychological surreal point-and-click adventure games because it's not so easy to shove microtransactions out the wazoo and get hundred million dollars from them. You see them making a lot of live services with endless progression, multiplayer and arcade-style games where it's easy to monetize.
I never meant small in terms of profits, I only ever meant in terms of development resources, that's what generative AI will impact. The most humble games can become huge hits, see: Stardew Valley. With a better cost proposition, we might just see those psychological surreal point-and-click adventure games.
Also do mind that Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition isn't a gacha, it's a scaled down port of the game of the same name that's divided into ten chapters; the first one's free, but the other nine will cost you. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, a free-to-play port of Final Fantasy VII too will be episodic, but it will have a gacha for weapons and costumes.
Well I did mean small in terms of profits, because that's what directs the investment of big companies. So, yeah, I don't think so. Farming Sims weren't even seen as a money maker until Stardew Valley became a hit. Sure they can chase trends, but even if it was cheaper it's pretty unlikely that they'd bother investing in genres they can't see big returns in. Even with AI, it's not like they can put "psychological surreal point-and-click adventure game" on a prompt and get a finished product that easy, they will still need to invest in developers for it, nevermind all the marketing that big companies do for their releases. It's more likely they'd release yet another gacha.
Even your examples of it being done different are still the highest profile releases from that company, not some quirky novel idea. They were betting big on FFXV when they released that, and they are doing this for FFVII these times.
The AAA companies are too risk-averse to take out the indie scene, they would rather insist on trends until they stagnate.
I was never arguing that it would be effortless, but easier. I also feel like the marketing budgets are kind of beside the point here of development costs, but hey, generative AI might help with that too.
I don't know, they also released Diofield Chronicle, Triangle Tactics, and Octopath Traveler were smaller budget games with no pre-existing IP that were also pretty experimental. What they make may not be your "psychological surreal point-and-click adventure game", but it might be something just as adventurous.
Eh, a couple new RPG IPs from a company known for making RPGs is hardly such daring venture. If anything, they used to make more of those around the PS1 era. AI may make game development easier, but it won't make such a drastic branching out likely.
Some people consider releasing new RPG IPs pitching your money right in the trash. That's pretty adventurous to me. Even if it doesn't cause a drastic branching out, more companies dipping their toes might make quite the ripple.
Can you imagine if SquareEnix of all things couldn't pitch a single brand new RPG IP? If this is what counts as adventurous, I'm not worried for indie studios at all.
It's wild, but these days this is adventurous, even for Sqaure-Enix. The trend with their AAA games has been not turn based RPG for more than a decade. More big companies might decide to release more modest size games that play to their heritage and strengths.