‘Holy f*** guys, we’re not replacing artists’: Larian boss responds to AI backlash
CEO Swen Vincke clarifies comments that the Divinity team is using AI for early ideation
Larian CEO Swen Vincke has been forced to respond to online backlash following confirmation that the studio is using generative AI to explore early game ideas.
Speaking to Bloomberg following its big The Game Awards reveal of Divinity, Vincke confirmed the studio was using AI “to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text,” but insisted that no AI generated content will make it into the final game and that “everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it”.
The comments drew criticism from players and former developers on social media, prompting Vincke to post a follow-up statement of his own.
“Holy fuck guys we’re not ‘pushing hard’ for or replacing concept artists with AI,” he wrote. “We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do.
“I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists.”
He continued: “We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.
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“… We’ve hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier.”
In a separate statement to IGN, Vincke said Larian is “neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI”.
He added: “While I understand it’s a subject that invokes a lot of emotion, it’s something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone’s working day better, not worse.”
Like in most creative industries, Generative AI has become a hot topic in video games, with many voicing concerns about generative AI leading to job losses and widespread plagiarism.
Steam games disclosing the use of generative AI had increased by 800% as of this summer, according to an analysis of generative AI games on Steam by Totally Human, which suggests that nearly 8,000 titles released on Steam now disclose GenAI usage, compared to 1,000 a year ago.
