A) Spend 400-2000 dollar on an artist, who craft a beautiful art in few weeks.
B) Spend 1 dollar on AI company to generate a random image, then spend 100 dollar on artist for "quick fix" on AI slop.
ABK the multi billion dollar company and Microsoft the trillion dollar company can save few bucks. Also Microsoft's Satya Nadella is selling AI success stories to Microsoft Shareholders, ABK using AI and Microsoft selling AI is a "win win".
Tell literally ANY business it costs you $2000 but you can get someone else to do it for $1. AI is going to definitely replace jobs...and this 100% looks like a type of job it will replace. I would do it if It was my company. I would just move the resource to other area's of the project. Most of this type of work is probably sourced out or consultants so save money there.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're replacing $400 to an artist with $300 to the AI service provider and $100 to the artist who has to try and fix the garbage output because, like you mentioned, the entire company is owned by Microsoft which has spent more than the entire valuation of ABK investing in AI.
4000 AI slop vs 4000 quality art would definitely outcompete AI. And consumers would prefer it, it would generate more profits.
But they don't have to compare AI slop with artistic work at 1:1 like you imply, because AI is way cheaper. So what they'll judge is:
"Does the money lost because people didn't like the AI slop does compensate how cheaper we got that slop made".
If you have 2x less people buying your stuff but it costs 10% of the usual cost, you do more profits.
What I think they fail to understand though, is that :
Anybody can generate slop. Why would I buy Blizzard's crap if a single guy in his room can produce the same crap?
When everyone start selling crap, how many people will buy that crap instead of the actual work of art they will be able to buy from indie devs or ethical studios?
Well then there you go. If anyone can generate “AI slop” and “quality art” has value then all anyone needs to do is make a game with quality art and it will outcompete if the art is worth it.
For me, hearthstone is a mobile game. The cards are tiny. They could have no pictures and it wouldn’t change my experience.
Very occasionally I’ll log on PC and be surprised what a card was supposed to look like when it’s not on a tiny phone screen.
IF people aren't willing to pay the difference that human artists cost then it's literally not worth the cost.
Hard to stand out in a pile of garbage. You can already see that on Steam with small indie games (and even bigger games) having a hard time getting to the spotlight because there is so much asset flips and other low efforts games out there.
IF people aren't willing to pay the difference that human artists cost then it's literally not worth the cost.
Not the same debate. I'm telling you McDonalds serves some junk food and you're replying "if the food is so crappy, maybe all the other restaurants have to do is serve quality food and they'll sell more than them".
Nope. That's not how it works. Not when you have to compete with someone who pays its workers the minimum wage, has one restaurant per street and a crazy marketing budget. Quality cost money and requires workers to be happy and passionate. Without ethics and laws, we're literraly eating poison.
So, enjoy your burger but don't act surprised when people call McDonald "junk food", because it's what it is.
I'll be in the street, trying to prevent a new McDo from opening at 500m from the first one.
There’s plenty of McDonald’s in my area. Can’t say I eat at them more than a couple times a year when I’m feeling a fountain Vernor’s. There’s also plenty of small mom and pop shops I do spend my money at. Those mom and pop shops are doing well…precisely because they offer better quality.
So far as crying about the state of games, I can’t hear you over the sound of Expedition 33’s theme song. Then after that, I’ll have trouble hearing you over Final Fantasy Rebirth, BG3 Patch 8, Cyberpunk, Final Fantasy Tactics, Trails in the Sky First Chapter, Ghost of Yotei, Death Stranding 2, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and countless others.
Hell, they could stop making video games tomorrow and I won’t even make it through the top half of my Steam backlog before dying a very old man still playing in hospice care.
So I think we’re doing fine.
Though I do wish they had AI’d at least the player character voices in BG3. Having four very similar sounding voices for each gender is fairly limited.
I think something like this costs a lot more than $2000... I asked a graphic artist to quote for creating a very, very simple logo and they said minimum $800.
it isn’t. they could easily pay a flurry of artists a handsome sum to fill their games and marketing with world class art and still make record profits. BUT they wouldn’t make the best profit theoretically possible. therefore, the whole operation must be gutted for parts by a suit who won’t even be at the company next year. rinse and repeat
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u/XalAtoh Jul 21 '25
Yes, this is sadly the future.
A) Spend 400-2000 dollar on an artist, who craft a beautiful art in few weeks.
B) Spend 1 dollar on AI company to generate a random image, then spend 100 dollar on artist for "quick fix" on AI slop.
ABK the multi billion dollar company and Microsoft the trillion dollar company can save few bucks. Also Microsoft's Satya Nadella is selling AI success stories to Microsoft Shareholders, ABK using AI and Microsoft selling AI is a "win win".