When you think of big, bright colours and shooting, you probably think of one of two things — paintball, or Splatoon. Well, last year, Square Enix unveiled its “online party shooter” Foamstars, and almost immediately, the internet reacted, comparing the colourful foam-shooting game to the inky king of the colours.
Today, in an interview with VGC, the producer of the upcoming online game Kosuke Okatani suggested that he'd like those comparisons to end as the game is something "completely different". Upon being asked whether "he's bored of comparisons" to the massively popular ink-based shooter from Nintendo. Okatani's first reaction was to laugh, and say "First of all, yes," but there's a bit more to it than that.
The producer has been noticing reactions to the game from the press and public — following an open beta a few months ago — and they've been largely positive. "There have been many comparisons on the internet," Okatani starts " but also, we saw on social media that the people who actually played it saw that it’s a completely different game".
VGC lays it out more like a hero shooter, where all of the characters have their own skill sets. You're also not trying to cover the arena in the most amount of colour, and your colourful foam can actually "reshape the environment", according to VGC. To this point, Okatani reiterates that Foamstars is very much its own thing, stating that he feels "like the mechanic of having the things you shoot stay on the field is very unique,”. So, not that much like Splatoon at all, really!
Not only has Square Enix been combatting those Splatoon comparisons, but the Japanese developer has also confirmed to VGC that the game contains some AI-generated art.
While producer Okani does state that "the core elements in Foamstars" are all handmade, he says that the company did want to experiment with AI. This is limited to in-game art for some of the game's fictional bands and in-universe music. "...this makes up about 0.01% or even less, but we have dabbled in it by creating these icons in the game."
Okani continues: "We experimented with Midjourney using simple prompts to produce abstract images. We loved what was created and used them as the final album covers players will see in the game." given that Square Enix president recently stated that the company wants to be "aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies", this isn't too surprising, but AI is a hot-button issue in the industry right now, and some fans may not take too kindly to its use in the game, even in a minimal way.
Don't forget, Splatoon is pretty famous for having its own in-universe idols and music, with all of the groups' album covers being created in-house by the team at Nintendo. And they're all amazing.
We know Foamstars isn't destined for Switch, but we've been curious about the shooter since its reveal in 2023 thanks to those initial comparisons. We searched it out back at Summer Game Fest last year and came away surprised and relieved that Foamstars seems to be carving out its own niche in an admittedly crowded genre.
What do you think of those Splatoon comparisons with Foamstars? Will you be trying the game up on PS Plus, or sticking to the ink? Bubble down in the comments.
[source videogameschronicle.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 63
I wish I was good at splatoon I love the game but man im just so dogshit at it lmfao
Maybe they should have a better job differentiating it? Going with something other than 4v4 might have helped.
There are lots of practical, real-world applications of AI that will help propel humanity forward.
Art is not one of them.
I liked what I played in the beta so AI can't be all that bad as I couldn't notice what was AI made or man made, but will be keeping an eye out when the full version comes out. Luckily it's launching day one into playstation plus.
i mean it definitely has its inspirations, and no one can deny that. but if its a good game, then more power to it! the ai art bit is interesting though. I'm wondering how ai will be creatively implemented in gaming besides the usual suspects. I think we forget that it is a tool that, in the right hands, could do a lot for game development. I doubt this game will be the one to do it, but just reading about the ai art section of the article got me thinking about it.
This unimaginative clone game (complete with stolen artwork) looks pretty "boring" to me.
What's this game? It looks like Splatoon!
I mean, they knew what they were doing. Bit late to start regretting it now.
I mean…they kind of brought it on themselves. A colorful team shooter where you shoot out non-conventional ammo with a bright, friendly, and inviting aesthetic. The comparison was practically guaranteed.
My friends with a PS5 tried the beta, they liked it. But I'll stick with Splatoon, thanks much! 🦑🔫🐙
I have nothing against AI when it is used as a tool in tandem with professional artists. Work smarter, not harder. The problem is when Square-Enix decides to start cutting employees because the AI is more proficient in an effort to inflate profits.
there is no single AA or AAA video game anymore without AI art used in at least a little bit of development
Tired of the comparisons to Splatoon, but.....Foamstars was clearly inspired by Splatoon. Make that make sense.
Yeah, I'll stick with Splatoon 3, thank you very much.
I wish I had more to say than what's already been said here, but yeah, he really didn't expect this? They're very similar concepts and a lot of the smaller aspects are similar as well. Heck, one thing people could easily glance over is when they're talking about AI art they mention that they're incorporating in-universe bands and music which, shockingly, is something Splatoon has been pretty well known for with the idol groups for each game. I won't say only Splatoon does it, but in recent years its the only major series to do so and within the genre it might even be the only shooter to do it. And then the AI artwork bit doesn't help overly, admittedly in such a small context it might not be atrocious but with how Squeenix is still going deeper into the NFT rabbit hole, AI could be a very slippery slope for them after this.
Honestly at this point, more than anything (well not more than the fact I just don't have a PlayStation), I've just put too much time into Splatoon that I just don't feel compelled to switch games. Call it a sunk-cost fallacy if you wish, but I do enjoy Splatoon so I'm fine with it. Also they've said Foamstars will only get a year's worth of updates which implies they don't have the highest hopes for it, so I'd be skipping this one out anyway if I could play it and had interest.
Kosuke Okatani: We wanted to 'stay fresh' and offer something completely different. I know we're not 'off the hook' with the comparisons... I had an 'Inkling' they'd be coming, but our game is nothing like Splatoon & your harsh words hurt me like a 'deep cut' - for those people with only one mind set, they can 'krak-on'.
@Not_Soos
I do AI art, and I disagree. Procedural generated images have tons of really exciting potential.
It's a tool. Like any tool, how it's used is going to determine it's worth. I did an exhibit where I trained neural networks using various categories of media, like "Disney movies" or "Western Video games" and had them generate images based on what they determined a "bad person" looks like, or things like that. It did an amazing job of highlighting how systemic prejudice is much more prevalent in some areas over others. In the same exhibit I showed how a neural net trained on 24 hour US news will draw almost identical images when trying to capture what a "Muslim" looks like and what a "terrorist" looks like.
I think my work has a ton of value, and I'm just some nobody. You should see what the real experts are doing and how they are pushing boundaries with generative images. AI art is also allowing artists with disabilities, like blind artists, to express themselves visually in a way that would never have been possible without it.
If you're trying to say that "we shouldn't replace real people with simple generative art", then you might want to be more direct and attack the problem of cost cutting though any means necessary. Game developers have already been using basic tools to slightly modify assists to get around paying artists for decades, so you're focusing on the wrong problem. All newer generative models are doing is making the art they were never going to pay for to begin with slightly better.
There is no need to devalue the work that me and thousands of others are doing with this tool because some people are choosing to use the tool in a very negative way and the media "scare" isn't providing a lot of exposure for the more positive elements.
But you have to admit... just the concept alone for foamstars wouldn't exist without splatoon.
He just told the internet NOT to do something. Prepare for the hordes of splatoon comparisons.
Or Ninjala.
@Ryu_Niiyama Brutal, Ryu!
"contains some AI-generated art." wait so the rest of the game is not AI generated? Like, an actual human being put a conscienentous thought into it and it still turned out this way?
(not to mention admitting to using AI generated art scummy in its own way)
Squaresoft really needs to go with the complete opposite of tuna on toast.
Splatoon 4 is not looking good.
@GrailUK 🤓 sometimes the light bulb does turn on.
Odd that Square Enix doesn't make this game free to play, that way it'll be better than Splatoon and they could easily make money off of it from all the PS5 and PC players who likes Splatoon but not Nintendo.
The squid in Splatoon have more personality, the mechanics of traversal and reloading in ink is smart and gets the job done then running around finding ammo or lacking in ink to hide in/jump to or whatever. Foamstars wishes it had creativity like that.
Sure I had thoughts about Splatoon 3 a desert open world singleplayer and it didn't do that but I mean. I still had fun with Splatoon 1 (don't own 2 or 3 yet) I expect the obstacle courses are still fun in singleplayer in 2 & 3. Whatever Octo Expansion added. I had my time with 1's multiplayer for free on Wii U to get an idea as a non-multiplayer gamer. Splatoon's core is still fun.
N64 platformers like Glover having 3 ball forms and physics and to use one in a water current to get on a button to open a door, is more compelling than Foamstars. Because sometimes movesets, level design, interactivity with objects and parts of the terrain is more fun in a game (especially a shooter you want levels and character loadouts to be interesting.
It's why I find PS3/360 shooters that are so Gears of War and COD inspired to be boring but they have 1 gimmick mechanic that's awesome and that's what I remember about them the most that's literally it.
That's what's so sad about that era is I care more about the mechanics than anything else in them, why because the rest of those games are so bland and forgettable.
5th/6th gen we had platformers and simcade racing games with more distinct ideas while still being realistic simcades or animals with interesting mechanics to make jumps, have interesting physics, swing on your tongue (Chameleon Twist, no one has recreated it's tongue mechanics still 20+ years later, no grapple hook or other reptile game), change between animals with different movesets and more to play with now we have bland games in many places it's hilarious) then just 'shooting and moving around like a generic character in any game no matter if it has a gimmick of foam, if it's underused who cares it's boring'.
Square doesn't have that mindset to do what Nintendo does and Splatoon started as what a Tofa character paintball game or so in the prototyping phase and morphed with so much character and personality of the gameplay, world, cool looking characters and the keeping to the language and world with in-universe stuff. Stuff even the Sims does with simlish versions of songs since Sims 3 I think. Some devs have creativity and some just lack it so hard it's not even funny anymore it's just sad.
I came up with modes and mechanics ideas while watching footage at another source showing off the game that's how boring it looked.
They could offer a foam height and weight mechanic, they could offer a foam building contest/foam height contest.
A foam maze to open up paths to the hidden by foam maze. They could have a bathtub/house level, they could make them as small as ants and some perspective stuff.
They could have chemical reactions to the foam with different gases/liquids. They could do anything but all they do is foam and deathmatch/a mode of the duck literally being to get the duck to the other side. Aka without the ink territory part Splatoon 1 did it for (not bought 2 & 3 yet).
They can avoid doing territory modes that's totally fine.
But tell me how they have they don't have any more than no imagination.
I mean not everything is a Smash clone but I mean even Smash has targets and the sandbag distance mode. It's movesets work. For Glory and the other mode. Each time they come up with something interesting to form the mechanics around or rulesets for the modes. Square Enix seems to have missed the point.
Like come on have some good ideas here Square Enix I gave you free game mode and mechanic ideas you'll never read of course, but far more exciting then your game is right now of it's basic concept of foam, humans, deathmatch modes/the duck one being a 'slightly' different version of a mode in Splatoon 1 because you probably stand on it then ink it to control it.
How lazy are they of branching out their idea/concept of foam to better identify itself and the ink comparison and barely anything excitingly used with it when they can't even put anything ambitious or gameplay exciting about it then foam and human characters so generic looking.
I had foam ideas when it was announced and more now with this footage while not watching it but listening to it/quick glimpses.
It's games like this that make me laugh. I'll go back to N64 platformers with more physics and exciting of level design and mechanics than a generic multiplayer game with foam skin and so much potential lacking that has no interesting qualities to it. Devs sitting on a gold mine of potential mechanics with foam and it will stay that way, bland and under-discovered good ideas others can think up and not even getting paid for it that can think outside the box.
Looks god awful
NL with a gatekeeping article wanting people to hate it. Nothing wrong with AI art either. At least it isn't the same game 3 times, plus it's a new Nintendo inspired game! Everything Nintendo inspired or influenced must be bad then?
I'm going in with an open mind as a gamer not a Nintendo fan.
It's square enix. They cancelled SO many games last year. Investing in foamstars is pointless because they'll have announced it's shutdown by this same time next year.
Honestly Foamstars seems to be very mechanically different from Splatoon, even if the visual design is similar. There’s nothing wrong with inspiration as long as you’re doing your own thing.
AI art though? Yeah I’m not defending that
@HeadPirate OpenAI literally stated in court, in legal writing, that it would be "impossible" to create AI tools without copyrighted material. It's on the books that AI is theft. You're not an artist, you just type prompts, and the tools you use are only going to be subject to more and more litigation as time goes on if they insist on helping themselves to legally protected works.
Source, one of them anyway: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/01/openai-says-its-impossible-to-create-useful-ai-models-without-copyrighted-material/
AI is going to be key in reducing the costs and development times of games. It's going be a hugely useful tool that's a massive enabler. It can't come soon enough.
People extolling the virtues of AI art sound exactly like the crypto and NFTs clowns from a few years back. The fact that Square Enix is aggressively pursuing this newest tech fad should tell you enough.
@HeadPirate you're doing jack. Typing words into a prompt isn't creating canvas art. Its being a hands off director. A commissioner in art industry terms. Except the commisionee in question steals other people's art and calls it their own.
Well I was one of the few people who did not s**t on this game and thought everyone else was being too harsh. But after seeing the mention of AI the ripoff artist?
pass
@Samalik Kinda harsh there mate. An artist spends years honing their craft, through painstakingly hours of patience and practice.
@HeadPirate spent 5 minutes typing random words. Clearly that's on the same level.
@Not_Soos But noo they just had to use ai on a game that I’m sure had many talented artist, geez.
@Vexx234 @Samalik @Zebetite
You obviously have no idea what an AI artist actually is or does. If your going to have such strong opinions on the topic, you should be informed.
I train neural networks with two advanced degrees worth of computer science over 100s of hours, use the neural networks to produce 1000s of images, then create composites of them by hand for large expos. The pieces create a snap-shot of how an impartial machine see our own bias.
There are no prompts, and suggesting that their would be is basically equivent to suggesting that Van Gogh used paint by numbers because your only exposure to visual art was a product created as a toy for non-artiest, but you just assumed that's what everyone uses. I do not use a commercial generative product, and did my first generative AI project 9 years before Open AI was founded.
Anyone can cut up a magazine and paste the little bits to a canvas, but that doesn't make Patrick Breme any less of an artist. What matters is that the results of his media had value. See the thing is, most people who try and do it suck at it. Same with generative art.
If all your doing is spending 5 mins on any art piece, be it painting, sculpture, ink, or anything else ... it's going to be really bad. You can make a few brush strokes and try to call it art. Most people will see though it. But that doesn't make painting any less of a valid media for people who master the craft.
You can spend 5 minutes trying to make something with a pre-made model. Most people will see though it. But that doesn't make generative AI any less of a valid media for people who master the craft.
Splatoon 3 is my most played game roght behind both Fire Emblem games. Its just so easy to pick up and play and it never gets old. Also I feel like the servers have improved massively from the earlier days and no one talks about that.
@Zebetite
Look, I'm going to give you the respect you didn't give me and try to politely explain that you have a real lack of understand around what generative models and neural networks are, and what procedural image generation actually does. You are like someone who sees a paint by numbers book and knows so little about art and the tools artist use that you assume that ALL visual art is created that way. Worse, you're telling someone who uses a completely different system that they're work isn't valid because you don't understand and think that Rembrandt just coloured in the lines. You see one application of generative art and think that ALL generative artists use that tool.
OpenAI is trying to create a system that will produce images based on natural language prompts on a massive scale. They use exabytes of data to do that. I am absolutely not trying to do that.
You can train neural networks on a much smaller scale for specialized tasks. We called them expert systems before the media and people like you just started calling everything "AI" . One of my first projects used 54 pieces of physical art from a workshop I ran. The technical details are beyond complicated, but using iterative models and feedback allows that to quickly grow to billions of data points, which is more then enough to train a functioning neural network.
Part two was using generation tools, which includes iterative workflow models that use the same amount of code as a ISO app. I actually don't use prompts, I use code, in much the same way a vector artist uses code to create images. The "prompt" is just an elemental of the UI for consumer products. It's actually extremely limited and would never be part of any real work. As I said before, prompt based UIs are to generative images what paint by numbers is to visual art. The models I create do not understand natural language and even if they did it would be near useless given the extremely limited number of source images.
Part 3 is taking what's generated a making a meaningful piece out of it. I work with collage and word art, and this part is no different then a collage artiest using magazine clippings
So if you want to get mad at me for paying 54 artists to create works and spending 100s of hours forging what they gave me into something that every single one of them agrees is a much more impactful piece then any of the individual works were on their own ... go nuts I guess.
Edit: I guess I should also note that the project I was talking about is from 2006. We had generative image models in the late 1990s, long before a group of rich people got together and started calling decades old systems "AI" so they could market them. This is not new.
Removed - flaming/arguing
@Serpenterror " Odd that Square Enix doesn't make this game free to play "
Well they did put it on PS+Essential for a month while they charge $29.99 for it, so that way everyone who pays for PS+ gets a game worth $30. Sony can't say that value is there if it's free. 🤷
If somehow people are still playing this in 6 months maybe they'll make it free then.
@HeadPirate
I don't see my personal dislike of AI art changing anytime soon, but with that said, I didn't mean to disrespect anyone who dabbles in it and apologize if my words came across as a personal attack toward your line of work. Art, of course, is purely subjective; I look at stuff like Andy Warhol's print of a Campbell's soup can or the abstract scribbling of Basquiat with strong revulsion, but there's still millions of people out there who find value in it. Who am I to say their perception is worthless?
My comments generally aren't meant to be taken very seriously and are just me giving my personal opinions because I want to be part of the conversation. But even though it's not my intent, sometimes my comments still get taken to heart, and that troubles me because that's the last thing I want to do. I'm not the end-all authority on... well, anything, really. I'm not trying to invalidate anyone else's opinion. Don't sweat over my two cents, because I'm not trying to judge you. I think we're all entitled to our opinions--even the negative ones--so long as we aren't making direct attacks on the people themselves. So while I don't care for AI art, there isn't a bone in my body that thinks less of you as a person because you are an avid believer in it, and I welcome your valuable insight to the discussion. I'm sorry about the scrutiny you're facing from other replies, though. It's not okay for them to harass you.
I stated in my original comment that I do think there are "practical, real-world" applications for AI. Correct me if I'm wrong--it's not my place to tell you what your work does and doesn't constitute as--but the project you describe sounds less like art for the sake of art, and more like a research experiment into the human psyche and sociopolitical landscape. I know most art has some sort of social commentary behind it, but this sounds more academic to me--like a science project or an essay with no words. You compiled data and presented your research to point out biases, and I think there's definitely value in that. To me, that's very different from artwork in a video game that's meant simply to be visually appealing and entice consumers to purchase a product; that's where it becomes cheap and lazy to me because it feels like there was no heart put into it.
Hopefully that makes a bit of sense. Even ignoring people's copyright concerns--which I do think are legitimate issues--AI art in its current state is just not aesthetically pleasing to me. You can usually tell something was made with AI because it has that uncanny valley effect that makes you feel uneasy. Your brain picks up on subtle discrepancies and you know something just isn't quite right. If I look at it for too long, I feel like I'm having a stroke. So for me, it's not even just about the ethics of it all.
Again though, that's just my opinion, and especially where things as subjective as art are concerned, my opinion isn't really worth a hill of beans. I do think you raise an interesting point about people with disabilities having an outlet to express themselves, which is something I've never considered. I do wonder how accurate a reflection this is of the artist's soul, though; perhaps, if they could see, the blind person would take a look at their AI generated image and say, "That isn't what I was going for at all." I'm just musing at this point, lol. It's thought-provoking.
@HeadPirate Hey, I say let's just separate the two and put them in their own categories. I mean if you like using Ai Art fine, I just find it funny when Ai artist proclaim they on equal footing and should been as such.
Dress it up however you like, but no way am I going to recognize your work as something to be admired.
@WaffleRaptor01
An interesting thing to say without seeing any of my art. The emotional response people feel generally doesn't "undo" itself when they learn how it was created.
I would simply say don't judge artists by media. There is an entire genre of visual art that involves making a single brush stroke on canvas and most people who work in it do so to deliberately "con" critics into buying work they created in under a minute. Examples have sold in the millions.
To say someone who take a single brush stroke is an artist because paint on canvas is "valid" art but someone who spends months on a project that at some point involves neural networks isn't seems very misguided to me.
@Not_Soos
Thank you for your reply. This is exactly why I make comments .. meaningful discourse sometimes happens!
"The System of the World" by Isaac Newton, which gave us the 3 laws of motion and gravity, was a long form poem.
Art is generally about intention. Newton wasn't' trying to use language to give his work greater meaning, it was simply the style at the time for scientific essays to be written in verse. It would be hard to make an argument that it's a work of art, rather then a work of science that uses something that could be used to create art.
For the project I'm talking about, I'm using visual media to communicate the message. I use well defined techniques common to modern art to enhance the impact and meaning. While a lot of science happens, it's happening to isolate the themes I should be focusing on and the actual message I want to send.
Imagine a group of people sitting around a table and looking at magazines to determine how the media handles body image with the intention of making a series of paintings or even photographs. They decide on using the same word art and fonts that ads use, but include real people and no editing and start producing it based on the reference material they collected.
That is literally what my neural networks do. Only they allow for a far more objective and far reaching analysis, and I can get them to produce something that not only captures the "feel" of a genuine ad, but includes connections and bias that a human might not notice or even be aware of. From there, I can use the created work as new reference material and decide what to do with it. Sometimes the project changes dramatically in this stage.
In one project where my intention was to show that Inuit and Métis people are not represented even in art specifically labeled as "indigenous people", my net kept drawing people in full body paint and tribal costumes. It got worse as I included more sources. I simply could NOT train this bias out of the network, because it's so much a part of how indigenous people are represented. So I pivoted and commissioned someone to take photos of real indigenous families in their day to day lives, then used AI masking to replace a member of the family with someone generated by my models.
I think that had a much greater impact then putting a bunch of photos on the wall and pointing out they were all a stereotype or writing an essay about it.
So is that "art"? Some people will say no, but some people still say using a ruler to draw straight lines invalidates visual art. Most informed art scholars will say yes though. That's good enough for me. Oh and I get grants and people pay me. I guess ... that's actually what makes it good enough for me.
I mentioned photographs. I'm old enough to remember when we had this same argument about them. Any idiot can pick up a cameras, point it at something and hit a button. It wasn't art and never would be. I read articles in art publications that were far more critical and was more final in their condemnation that a cameras could NEVER produce art and no one using them would ever be an artist then anyone in these comments is about generative art.
But it was because people didn't really understand what went into making a good photo, because the technology was new to '"pure" art, misunderstood, and largely unaccusable. It changed when people started to shed their ignorance.
So to quote a much better artist then myself, it's all just a little bit of history repeating.
The future is 100% AI generated gacha games that cater to every anime trope and cliche possible in ways the current ones could only dream of, there’s already countless ones that all look and play the same so imagine what happens when development becomes almost entirely automated while being able to target and exploit its audience to maximum efficiency. The trick will be to either not acknowledge this or find a way to do so like spinning the AI artists as personalities like vocaloid characters.
You can certainly be bored of comparisons but equally it should be exciting for a developer to have these comparisons. At least it could draw in that audience to your new IP.
can we get another PowerStone game? =)
One thing is acknowledging that there are similarities with Splatoon because there definitely are, another is calling this game a "rip-off", "clone" etc. like I've seen done on this very site when there actually are several, significant differences between the two based on what I've seen and heard.
About AI, I'm worried about it being used to steal other people's creations and especially as an excuse to fire people more than anything else...
@SalvorHardin Trust me, those games would be shunned by their target audience.
In case you haven't noticed in the past 20 years, otakudom has grown to have a lot more tropes than when it started, partly because of how everything keeps getting rethought thematically in the doujin scene before it reaches mainstream, all backed up by how much akihabara keeps changing with the winds.
@Vexx234 that wasn't aimed at real artists. Re-read my comment.
@Samalik I know it wasn't aimed at real artists. It was me being joking about AI "artists".
I think the saddest thing I've learned reading these posts that is a small group of billionaires have been completely effective in relabeling "EI", a type of algorithmic that we first developed in the late 70s as "AI". It's so bad that numerous people at numerous points in this comment section confuse "EI", a decades old tech, with AGI, a theoretical type of programs we are likely 40 to 50 years from even having a working prototype of and still don't even fully understand as a design goal.
Chat GPT and "prompt" based image generators are "expert systems" and use EI. Home grown neural networks that are used by researchers and some artists, and the one used to MAKE Chat GPT and other consumer products are generally based in principals much closer to AI. As a technology, Chat GPT and all current image generation models are much closer to spell check then they are to AI.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the thing Open AI is taking about most of the time, is pure fantasy. "Data" from "Star Trek" isn't even an AGI, he's a really good expert system.
And while I get that "Foamstars uses images created by a human using an expert system which may or may not of itself been designed by humans that were using AI" isn't going to get as many clicks, and this article only exists because the people selling expert systems made "AI" a sexy and contraveral word so we would all toss money at them ... I really, really wish we lived in a world where we talked like that, and where tactics like that were not so effective.
@HeadPirate You keep defending it without pointing out the actual cons and problems with it. "There are no negatives only positives" is pretty much your defense.
You haven't directly answered any concerns related to the bad sides of it, as pointed out by your detractors. You just keep dancing around all the cons.
@DripDropCop146
I'm not defending anything. I'm speaking to misconceptions, and most of the misconceptions are negative. If people had positive misconceptions I would also correct them, but that's not happening.
It's also very difficult to speak to specific criticism because most of the criticisms are speaking to AGI, a thing that
1) I do not and never have worked with
2) Is insanely complicated, requiring a strong understanding of computer science and AI development to meaningfully talk about
3) The article is not about
4) Does not exist in even a remedial form and is unlikely to exist for decades.
I can't do anything about the fact that people have formed very strong options on a complex, specialized topic they know almost nothing about. If someone replies to an article on curling by saying "We should ban people from playing sports because football players get concussions" it's hard to reply to that because this person seems to think that curling and football are the same thing because they are both "sports".
The only specific criticism that seems to apply to generative imagines made by expert systems (the thing this article is about) is that companies shouldn't replace human artists. I have spoken directly to that and said that companies should not replace human workers for any reason. I'm literally a Marxist. My options on workers rights and the responsibility to keep the Bourgeoisie in check are not really at issue here.
But even that is difficult to speak to because it's just another misconception. That's not happening. The tools we have right now for image generation are no where near the point where they could replace a human.
The only thing that happening in a case like this one is that instead of a human being being given assists EA already owns and being told "You have 12 hours to use editing tools to turn this in to something we can use" is that now that same person is being told "You have 12 hours to use generative tools to make something we can use". Most of the 12 hours are still going to be manual touch ups in editing software to remove generation artifacts.
Oh and I guess the other change is now people are trying to say that person, simply doing a job they have no control over, and still putting a ton of effort into producing something they can be proud of, and literally doing the exact same thing they've done for years only using a different type of computer assistance tool is an evil monster who has no right to call themselves an artist.
I disagree.
If you had any other direct concerns you want me to speak to, ask away. On a one to one level, I'm happy to explain.
Removed - flaming/arguing
@Vivianeat You don't have to be a Nintendo fan to know it's a rip-off of Splatoon.
Ai art sounds like an excuse to be lazy. If only 0.1% is Ai, why even bother?
@HeadPirate Because you yourself aren't making anything. You fed a computer system a bunch of keywords and told it to create an image, possibly with stolen work.
"Touching up" an image also isn't art. You are not an artist. Your only contribution to the project is to fix/adjust someone else's work.
I like one explanation that I've heard. Why do companies keep leaping on the latest tech bandwagon and embracing nfts and ai and other shifty junk that's come and gone? Because the executives at the top sink money into these things and do what they can to get a return on their investment.
If all these tech fads actually amounted to something, companies and fanboys wouldn't have to work so hard to push this stuff, to push their angle that THIS IS THE FUTURE, THIS IS INEVITABLE, GIVE US YOUR MONEY because that's always what it comes down to. You'd think that the tech would speak for itself without shills shouting their glory.
Like procedural generation, a algorithm tool. And that's all AI is by the way, "artificial intelligence" is just a buzzword, there's nothing actually intelligent about algorithms. Anyway, procedural generation has been a useful tool for developers in video games and other fields for decades, and you don't hear people shouting from the rooftops about it because it works and it doesn't screw people over and, oh yeah, it doesn't have the potential, real or imagined, to generate gobs of money.
tldr ai is dumb and I felt like rambling some more about it
@LucianFox
Please read the several comments I've made explaining how "using key words" is not part of the process or the tech being used.
You are basically someone who sees an ad for paint by numbers and assumes that what all visual artists do. Your only exposer to generation is a toy made for the masses, so you incorrectly assume that's the what professionals use.
In reality, someone working on a product like this is using the same interpolation toolset other animators have been using for decades, only with neural networks as a base instead of libraries. In traditional commercial art generation especially for video games, if you want a "cat", you open up a menu, type in "cat" and get a starting point based on an asset your company already own. While building assets from scratch happens, it's not the norm, and not what 90% of people are doing. Why pay someone to build and animate a new wire-frame when you already have dozens and you can scale every individual characteristic automatically using software? It's the textures and graphical maps that make it look like a different cat ... which are applied using a heavily computer assisted toolset.
Now, instead of opening a menu, you train a neural network to by able to give you a more custom "cat". This is a code based exercise using company assets, it's not something you do with a promote based web UI from someone else. Then when you've finished the actual design work and click "apply texture to polygon", instead of software doing that using a fixed algorithm, you'll pick a neural net trained to consider the art direction of the game in making decisions. The human experience basically unchanged.
Most of the time (right now anyways) it is a more complicated process and takes longer then if you just did it the old way, but the end product is potentially better. While I can't speak for everyone, right now, image generation is being explored as a means to higher quality final products, not as a cost saving or productivity tool. I'm sure some bad actors are trying, but right now the tech just isn't their yet.
If you want to have a strong option, even a negative one, that's your prerogative. But you should at least calm down long enough to get a remedial, basic, entry level understanding of the thing you are forming an opinion on. Right now you don't have that. You're option is based exclusively on misconceptions and on technologies, AGI and natural language learning models, that are not used in professional art.
@Zebetite
While your opinion that "AI" is a buzzword being applied to decades old technology by billionaire investors to dupe people into being excited over nothing is absolutely correct, it is also completely incompatible with your much more vocal opinion that anyone who uses AI is a sub-human monster with no right to call themselves an artist. They are using the same tools they have been using for their entire lives, the only difference being that now they are being incorrectly labeled as AI based on rudimentary changes based around neural networks.
You should pick a lane.
@LucianFox Ah, the usual too lazy idea. Did you know people protested calculators, thought that mobile phones were stupid, hated digital art programs like Adobe, and said that talking movies would drive people away from theaters?
Your comment is in the same category of how these forms of tech were hated during it's beginning of mainstream use.
NO need to hate on this game, there will be a lot of people who love it and that's all that matters, their joy.
Cry some more about AI
Let's be honest. AI or not, this game is going to be killed off in a year's time.
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