this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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Waiting for the "Whoops, we 'forgot' to remove it".

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[–] AmosBurton_ThatGuy@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Gonna preface this by saying I'm obviously a huge Expanse fan so my opinion is definitely biased. My username is a character from The Expanse and I consider it both my favorite TV show and book series ever. Wanted to make that clear up front.

That being said, if the game is good and they eventually replace the slop assets with proper assets, then what does it matter? As much as I like Lemmy, the hardline stances the community tends to take pisses me off at times. "Oh you're not a full blown communist and haven't read Marx? You're no better than a nazi you filthy shitlib"

Or regarding "AI" (hate that they called it that, it's basically just a smarter auto correct thats existed in smartphone keyboards for years now) anyone that doesn't automatically and passionately hate AI or any of its uses is automatically demonized as a supporter of big tech. Don't get me wrong, I fucking hate 90% of what "AI" does and is used for, especially how corpos are using it as an excuse to lay off real people and how dumbasses are relying on it as pure truth when it constantly hallucinates bullshit. I don't support "AI" and I can't wait for the bubble to burst.

There's almost zero nuance here, it's 90% "you're with us or you're against us" with no room for anything in between.

If the game is good and they replace the slop assets with real assets when it's released next year then who fucking cares that they used AI, what matters is whether the game is good or not and whether the devs are treated and paid well. Expedition 33 used AI in earlier iterations and it all got replaced with real assets eventually but that didn't stop Lemmy from shitting on one of the best games (IMO) to come out within the last decade once that became public.

You wanna make this place a more mainstream alternative to big tech controlling everything? Get off your high horse and accept that there's nuance to everything, it's not just black and white. Otherwise this place will continue to scare off new users faster than it can gain them. I consider myself to be a progressive, I'm Canadian and I've only voted NDP since I was able to vote and I'm now 32. I also really respect AOC, Mamdani, and Sanders in the states, so I'm already close enough to the target demographic of Lemmy if you exclude the tankie trifecta (ml, hexbear, and grad) and even I get sick of the circlejerk here at times.

Judge something when you can actually have a proper opportunity to do so rather than getting preemptively pissed off because they had the audacity to use something you don't like.

If the game comes out and still has slop in it and/or just sucks in general, then yeah, shit on it all you want, and I'll be first in line to join the club cause I absolutely love The Expanse and I'll be immensely disappointed if it turns out bad.

Again, in the interest of honesty and transparency, I usually prefer to just throw my opinions out there and not read or respond to replies when it's something that I know is gonna be controversial so I won't be replying to anyone that replies to this comment. I really hate arguing with random people on the internet so I just ignore replies for the most part.

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago

It’s my favorite book too. I’m conflicted. AI isn’t going back in the box.

At the same time, it’s kinda like the way Belters are treated, barely getting their needs met in favor of corporate profits. AI is doing the same thing to a lot of people looking for work and is built off stolen labor.

[–] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 22 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Open up paint and doodle it for Christ's sake, these guys "forget" to go back and change it I've noticed, so just don't use it, boom, problem solved.

[–] I_Jedi@lemmy.today 5 points 9 hours ago

Guarantee they still have a chip on their shoulder about their art teacher telling them to stop using stick figures back in the day.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 66 points 13 hours ago

If your placeholder doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, it's a bad placeholder. There is literally no workflow in which temporary assets shat by AI would be useful.

They just want to normalize AI use until people don't care anymore. And with the waste of resources this shit represents, I just hope this never happens.

[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 45 points 14 hours ago

Whelp, my interest in The Expanse Osiris Reborn has officially died...Rest in Piss, Owlcat!

[–] Egonallanon@feddit.uk 25 points 13 hours ago (5 children)

My question is if everything is going to be human made in the end why bother using at all? You won't even get any of the much vaunted time savings at that point.

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 22 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Every other commenter under this seems to forget that stock assets exist and worked fine for decades without involving AI slop.

[–] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 13 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Stock assets (at least if you need more than the absolutely basics) cost quite a bit. Programmer art can work, but if you want something close to the tone of the finished product, still takes time and thus money. Slop is quick and free.

Frankly, given the fact that placeholder assets are literally meant to be utilitarian, disposable, "just good enough" work, it's actually not a terrible use case. Placeholders are meant to be slop either way, so not much is lost by automating it, so long as it is actually removed after.

[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 9 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Placeholder assets are generally better if they look out of place because then you don't forget to replace them 😅

AI art generation is trained to be just good enough to fly under the rader if not looked at too closely...

[–] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago

Depends on the use case. If its just to be a piece to fill the spot and nothing else, yes. That said, assets impact tone and gameplay, and if you're trying to judge how something will feel or play, then sometimes you need something closer to the given use case. For example, if you have a survival horror game and are trying to judge the ambiance and visibility of an in-progress level, using wildly out of place assets will mess with the tone, and may result in difficulty in judging factors like the visibility of gameplay elements. Like was said before, the same role as stock assets and programmer art.

[–] stankmut@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

It depends on what you are using placeholder assets for. If you want to use it to gauge how a scene would look before setting out to build it, then placeholders that stand out get in the way. You would need a way of tracking all the slop, but then you could have a build tool track how much slop is still in the game to make sure you catch it all before release.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

It is conceivable (though I certainly understand skepticism) that they use it for concept and placeholder art, proofs of concept and the like.

As always, the question should be whether the final product is any good.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 5 points 11 hours ago

The question should be whether the final product is worth what was sacrificed to make it. That line is different for everyone, but it's important to keep that in mind. Plenty of companies I boycott make acceptable products but are supporting a genocide.

I don't think generative AI use is worth it however it's employed and regardless of the quality of the final product. If enough people agree maybe they'll stop using it.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It's similar to the pre-vis stage of movie special effects. You're using basically anything available to create a facsimile of the final scene, to see if your framing and pacing work the way you intend to. In film, artists will often use action figures shot with their phone, because it doesn't matter if it looks janky since it's not a scene going in the movie to begin with; it's a test to see if your scene works at all. Game development and filmmaking share a lot of overlap in workflows these days.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

For an example, see the leaked Heart of the Swarm ending animatic (StarCraft spoilers, obviously). It's a super janky rough cut to try out the scene's flow before pouring their full resources into it. They had most of the art assets already in place since it's a sequel, but for the parts they didn't they used concept art and even music ripped from the Transformers movie.

For instance. You can try things out without first creating them by hand. Then you pick and choose and make the final version by hand.

[–] Mordikan@kbin.earth 2 points 13 hours ago

Because development isn't exactly asynchronous by nature. If you are waiting on placeholder assets, you are blocking everything dependent on "what comes next". Even at the cost of going back to repopulate your assets with non-placeholders, you save a tremendous amount of time.

[–] AnchoriteMagus@lemmy.world 39 points 14 hours ago

Well, fuck. At least we got Rogue Trader and the Pathfinder games before enshittification began.

[–] oicasado@lemmy.eco.br 24 points 14 hours ago
[–] houndeyes@toast.ooo 12 points 14 hours ago
[–] oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip 6 points 12 hours ago

On to the shit list they go.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 7 points 13 hours ago

I really don't care what they use to make a game. I care that it isn't shit. There's plenty of good and bad uses of generative AI.

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 8 points 13 hours ago

Well... you see... 25% of the game is 100% human made!

[–] mrfriki@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

I don't care if it is the fucking Half Life 3 in the flesh. If a game uses some short of AI I will never buy it.

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Upside, so if these guys use AI to create assets or code, none of that can be copyrighted currently under the law. Therefore if it's not copyrightable then pirating the game and using those assets in other games is perfectly fine.

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

This would never hold up in court, in part due to regulatory capture, but I think this is the only thing that would stop them.

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (2 children)
[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, I'm aware of that. Just that courts will not rule against things that involve the use of AI in general. You cannot take the output directly from, but once a human gets involved they will allow it. There's too many monied interests to allow the restrictions.

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

That's the fun part of all of it though, there's no definition or even subjective ruling of what constitutes "substantial transformation" or any running that generative AI being derivative of copyrighted material, it's a complete legal clusterfuck of law and consequences.

But yeah, I do agree that if a running or law change came about it would definitely be in the favor of late stage capitalism.

[–] FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 2 points 9 hours ago

Doesnt that guy want his ai to own the copyright of the art it makes?

[–] stankmut@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

The game containing public domain images wouldn't make the entire game public domain. Someone with a copy of the game could distribute those particular assets though. Maybe. It depends on how much human effort was involved; an AI image can become copyrightable if enough effort was done to transform it after it was generated.

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 0 points 11 hours ago

Pirating the game and using those assets was always fine, no matter the circumstances, company, artist, or developer. Copyright and intellectual property is an illusion the capitalist class uses to exclude the poor from ideas they feel they can profit from.

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus -4 points 11 hours ago

Doesn't really matter to me, because I was going to pirate it the same as I do any game, AAA or indie.

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 0 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

So is every other major game company. This company just is open about it.

Only someone living under a rock can convince themselves developers arent using AI for all sorts of shit.

People are deeply unaware of the fact AI autocomplete for code has been baked into almost every major editor for almost 2 years now, and its enabled by default, opt out.

There are 3 types of game devs now:

  1. Those who admit publicly to using AI
  2. Those who have naive PR who truly dont know AI is being used a bunch
  3. Outright liars who lie about not using AI
[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 20 points 13 hours ago
  1. Indie developers who genuinely don’t use it.
[–] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 9 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Generated code is no different than generated imagery. They were both trained off stolen content and are both in a legally grey area. Both are equally immoral.

But just go with your Everybody else is doing it argument

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 1 points 11 hours ago

You can't steal something you copied, because nothing has been taken, and the concept of owning ideas is ridiculous anyway. Not to mention morality is subjective.

Pirate everything, because everything is yours as much as it is the original creators.