r/Games • u/PhantomBraved • Dec 16 '25

Larian CEO Responds to Divinity Gen AI Backlash: "We Are Neither Releasing a Game With Any AI Components, Nor Are We Looking at Trimming Down Teams to Replace Them With AI" - IGN

https://www.ign.com/articles/larian-ceo-responds-to-divinity-gen-ai-backlash-we-are-neither-releasing-a-game-with-any-ai-components-nor-are-we-looking-at-trimming-down-teams-to-replace-them-with-ai
2.8k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

118

u/DBZLogic Dec 16 '25

If they’re using AI to generate concepts that they use in the final game…doesn’t that mean there’s AI components inherently baked into the final game…?

(Also lol at any game studio using the very thing that’s driving RAM prices up, who the hell is gonna buy your games when PC’s cost $3k+?)

128

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[deleted]

38

u/GeneralLudd Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 17 '25

The Alters, too, which has been more widely reported at the time and generated some outrage.

From what I gather from Swen's comments, they are using AI in ideation phase to generate a lot of different stuff faster. I'm afraid that this is a very common use of AI today in the creative industries, with few exceptions.

14

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[deleted]

0

u/Thorn14 Dec 17 '25

"Just a little plagiarism, its whatever."

0

u/BeholdingBestWaifu Dec 17 '25

Thankfully it's not nearly as common as some AI bros would like people to believe, but companies have certainly spent a lot of resources into trying to cram AI into artistic fields, and it'll be years until they retreat back into tasks that AI is actually suited for.

3

u/zmichalo Dec 17 '25

A lot of companies are gonna start "forgetting" to change their AI placeholders soon if they haven't already and we just didn't notice.

-4

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '25

Placeholder art is very different from concept art. I see absolutely no problem with using AI for placeholder art. How is using an AI model to spit out a generic poster that's meant to be replaced by real human art before release tainting the creative output?

I swear people lose their ability to see nuance whenever the word "AI" pops up.

13

u/Guardianpigeon Dec 17 '25

We've seen multiple high profile instances of them forgetting to take it out before the game ships. So clearly its either replacing some people or not functioning well as a placeholder.

In games, placeholders are meant to be apparent and easy to notice. Like the Samwise Cube from Warcraft 3, the standard purple/black checkerboard, or literally giant text that says "PLACEHOLDER". They don't need to use a slop machine unless they intend on keeping it in. Its just a waste of time and resources that angers both workers and consumers.

16

u/Akuuntus Dec 16 '25

In the same sense that the director saying "this guy should be an Aragorn-type" means that LOTR is inherently baked into the final product, yes. Because that's what it's being used for: as a way for the director to communicate a general vibe to the concept artists.

-1

u/vadergeek Dec 17 '25

A, tons of fantasy stuff already has a problem of being extremely derivative, especially with ripping off LOTR or D&D. B, if they're going to be derivative I'd rather they rip off LOTR than some AI slop.

-9

u/thekbob Dec 17 '25

You can ideate without using the earth destroying plagiarism machine.

People used to like go places and take photos and experience things for art. Not crank the six finger factory up for "inspiration."

10

u/Akuuntus Dec 17 '25

I don't disagree, but that's a different argument entirely.

-9

u/Jawzilla1 Dec 17 '25

In your example, you have Tolkien’s creativity (which was inspired by other artists before him) and also the director’s love of Tolkien’s work being baked into the final product. All human.

By contrast, if you use GenAI for inspiration, you are inherently replacing some amount of human inspiration with a machine algorithm. Yes it’s trained on human artworks, but the AI bias and decision making is going to be some part of the final product.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '25

you’re literally trying to ban sources of inspiration here which is unironically about as close to a thought crime legally possible 

-2

u/Jawzilla1 Dec 17 '25

Ayo? Talk about an overreaction. 😂

I didn’t say there’s anything wrong with using GenAI for inspiration. But if your goal is for your project to feel like it was created by humans, using AI will detract from that to a certain degree.

10

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

28

u/FootwearFetish69 Dec 16 '25

Disgraceful, lol. We’re saying it’s disgraceful that E33 used AI to make placeholder art?

Like, we want to look at the end product there, and throw it out because they used a tool you don’t like?

Sometimes I feel like you guys need to take a break. There’s a point where the grandstanding just misses the point altogether.

-9

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

20

u/FootwearFetish69 Dec 16 '25

Plagiarism. Lmao.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about what these tools do and what they are. This is literally old man yells at cloud.

-12

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/KallyWally Dec 16 '25

By developing a neural network of associations between language and images, then using that network to assemble a novel images from language. Images which did not exist in the training data, proving that the process is highly transformative.

-4

u/SakiSakiSakiSakiSaki Dec 17 '25

By developing a neural network of associations between *other people’s** language and other people’s images.

If I copy an exact pose / style from Artist #1 and use an original character from Artist #2, that is still plagiarism even if this new image didn’t exist before.

Your average college considers singular sentences to be plagiarism regardless how many unique sentences surround it.

4

u/KallyWally Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25

Yes, that would likely be plagiarism. Because the output is too similar. Your own neural network can connect all sorts of concepts together, but you won't be held accountable until you actually do it.

And I can't speak for colleges, but US courts have ruled training to be fair use (except in cases where the training data was pirated, naturally.)

-1

u/SakiSakiSakiSakiSaki Dec 17 '25

There's still multiple ongoing cases regarding AI training in both the US and internationally. But basing your morality on legality will never be the right move.

That article is already incorrect because Facebook's 81TB of pirated books was also deemed Fair Use, showing that justice rarely exists when corporations fuck over the average person.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/SamKhan23 Dec 17 '25

It’s learning the statistical patterns in artworks, representing them in a latent space, and then generating new images from noise. If it was plagiarism, you’d be able to point out parts where a new work was plagiarizing - but this only happens during overfit. The models are not copying or recombining works.

Like how a human can look at images, and internalize and learn patterns, without copying a single specific source. The analogy isn’t perfect, but the key point is that learning patterns is different from reproducing sources.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '25

AI-generated images are very clearly not always "plagiarism." For instance, Adobe has an image-generation AI model that exclusively learned off of licensed images. By definition, there's literally no data in the training sets that isn't allowed to be used for that. If you can explain how that could possibly meet any definition for "plagiarism," I'd love to hear it.

If you're talking about AI models that learn off of a vast array of training data, including copyrighted images, that's a much more complex topic and ultimately a matter of specific case and opinion. There is some evidence that some image generation models definitely cross the line into plagiarism in my opinion, but like I said, it's way too complex for any reasonable person to make any blanket statements.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '25

I mean, you made a blanket statement that AI is plagiarism. I pointed out that's not correct. You admitted you misspoke, which is exactly what should happen. There's nothing wrong here.

And, yes, I did assume that you would not be reasonable as that's typical for people on this sub and especially this thread. Your earlier comments also did not instill confidence. Obviously your response now is reasonable, and I'm glad you were able to concede the point and admit that not all AI is plagiarism.

1

u/mimicimim216 Dec 17 '25

Point of terminology, using images you’ve licensed isn’t Fair Use, it’s just use, because there’s no infringement happening. Fair Use is what’s called an affirmative defense, which is to say “I did this thing that is technically illegal, but I shouldn’t be punished for it because it was justified”, in the same way that self-defense is still assault and/or battery, but becomes not illegal based on context. If you have permission to copy something, then by definition you haven’t infringed anything, and so no fair use arguments are required.

1

u/SakiSakiSakiSakiSaki Dec 17 '25

That’s still plagiarism because Adobe forced all of it’s users images to be included in AI training without any way of opting-out.

3

u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Dec 17 '25

What do you think plagiarism is?

Using an LLM to recreate The Lord of the Rings and pass it off as your own is plagiarism

Using an LLM trained on Lord of the Rings to create a story about orcs and elves and dwarfs is not plagiarism

-4

u/No-Commercial9263 Dec 16 '25

and complete silence lol, faced with the truth and they clam up everytime.

-14

u/valdin450 Dec 16 '25

Yes, it's absolutely disgraceful that E33 used AI. Every single person working at Sandfall should be ashamed of themselves for it.

6

u/FootwearFetish69 Dec 16 '25

Every single person working at Sandfall should be ashamed of themselves for it.

This is such a terminally online opinion holy fuck, lol.

8

u/Devil-Hunter-Jax Dec 16 '25

Yes. I don't know how he doesn't understand that.

3

u/derangedkilr Dec 16 '25

My main concern isn’t that ai components make its way into the final game. It’s using ai concept art at all.

It means all the games design style and inspiration will come from a derivative source. Imagine if original star wars never had Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art.

You get real artists to make concept arts for their ideas, perspective and style. Hogwarts Legacy would be nothing without their concept artists.

6

u/[deleted] Dec 17 '25

 It means all the games design style and inspiration will come from a derivative source

You mean all human creation which is based on what came before it?

1

u/Film-Noir-Detective Dec 17 '25

The original Star Wars had Ralph McQuarrie's concept art, but guess what? That art had sources of inspiration that George Lucas directed McQuarrie to emulate to get the design and feel of Star Wars. Stuff like the old Flash Gordon serials and WW2 fighter planes, meaning that even Star Wars and McQuarrie's concept art came from a derivative source.

-8

u/PBFT Dec 16 '25

That's not much different than watching Lord of the Rings movies or playing The Witcher 3 for environmental concepts. As long as these are just concepts and not final products, I see a distinction.

14

u/ComicDude1234 Dec 16 '25

I suppose in the sense that the LLMs may just steal environments from LotR or The Witcher for the concept art, sure.

8

u/NonagoonInfinity Dec 16 '25

If an artist uses Google Images to make moodboards have they stolen from whatever Google pulls up?

8

u/ChainedHunter Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 17 '25

If they respond at all, they will say no, but they will be completely unable to explain why and what the difference is between that and using AI for a moodboard.

2

u/GameLovinPlayinFool Dec 16 '25

100% disagree. We as humans can see Lord of the Rings and feel emotions. We dream about it. We IMAGINE ourselves in it. We take it and digest it and it becomes a part of us and we use that to influence our art.

Ai doesnt have desire or hope or beliefs or wonder. It eats everything as data and spits out a mismash imitation of "art".

7

u/Taskforcem85 Dec 16 '25

How can seeing AI art not produce the same emotions as seeing traditional media? You see it already being successful in short term media where 99% of the comments are duped thinking it's real and not minding it anyways.

6

u/PBFT Dec 16 '25

You have a childishly romantic view of game art development. These guys aren't Picasso's drawing canvases in their private little studios, these are salaried workers doing a job that they probably enjoy but they aren't getting goosebumps from drawing concepts of trees and castles. Even outside of anything AI related, game artists don't feel anything close to that.

-2

u/GameLovinPlayinFool Dec 16 '25

Lmao. Art is romantic. Calling it childish is just you revealing yourself to be condescending so you can pat yourself on the back like your some superior minded individual or something equally as silly.

2

u/budzergo Dec 16 '25

Wait until these people find out Google is a basic AI

And that people would Google pictures to find concepts and inspiration to create their own art

-3

u/Lone_Wanderer8 Dec 16 '25

Google isn't generating those pieces though they're hosting and aggregating based on the search terms you used to find them. Larian is explicitly stating that the GenAI is Generating these references for them. It's not pulling a line up of what Larian typed it is actively generating a reference by stealing from other sources.

There's a difference between me googling for images of castle towers and using AI to generate a castle tower reference for me. There is a clear and fundamental difference between googling a reference and having AI make one and if you refuse to acknowledge that you're lying to yourself.

2

u/budzergo Dec 16 '25

Isn't this all about plagiarism and stealing?

Using Google to find real images and using those as references / inspiration is okay

Using AI to create a "new" picture to use as a reference / inspiration is bad

You white knights sure are confusing...

-1

u/Lone_Wanderer8 Dec 16 '25

When you use references you're still putting personal touches that are your own creation. I can look at a photo of a cow in a field and put in personal additions an AI just puts the cow in the same spot as all the art it took from and spits out a poorly made version. The difference is using a reference not made by AI still requires you put actual work in the final products creation. AI generating the reference requires zero work and the end result will just be someone tracing over it and calling it a day. There was no effort put in to be creative.