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According to a new report, both AMD and Nvidia will raise the prices of their consumer GPUs "significantly" this year. If this report is true, both companies will have pushed these price hikes by next month.
In the midst of increasing AI usage across the board, one publisher is taking a firm stance against the technology, labeling it "cancerous." It has therefore issued a total ban on the use of AI in the games it publishes.
The publisher in question is Hooded Horse, known for supporting countless indie games, some of which are immensely popular and successful. Some of its most notable published games include Manor Lords, Against the Storm, Cataclismo, Endless Legend 2, and Darkwood 2, among others. It's certainly one of the most prominent indie publishers on the market, and it's now using its position to fight against what it perceives as a harmful technology.
In an interview with Kotaku, chief executive Tim Bender said the only thing AI ever did was "[make] our lives more difficult."
"I fucking hate Gen AI art," Bender said, adding that Hooded Horse's publishing contracts include a clause for "no fucking AI assets."
Bender went on to say that the publisher "got to the point" where it communicates to its potential partners that no AI should be used, even as placeholders, because there is always a chance it would "slip through" into the final build.
"Because of that, we’re constantly having to watch and deal with it and try to prevent it from slipping in, because it’s cancerous," he said.
Bender concluded by saying that it'd be a "betrayal" of all the people in the company's marketing team who produce all sorts of promotional art if they were to be forced into working with something that relies on generative AI. "I wouldn’t be able to face them if we had that," he said, indicating that this is more of an ethical stance than a PR-related one.
Enforcing these rules is difficult, but I for one believe it's the right course of action. Sure, some of these devs will use AI and mask it well, especially as the technology gets better, but it's important to have rules in place that openly stand in defiance of this worldwide corporate push toward a reality where things are purely artificial, built on the foundations of millennia of human work and effort just so some CEO somewhere could rake in even more cash than he does now.
At least before that selfsame CEO had to produce something of value, something original and striking enough for people to want to experience, so he could rake in the cash. Now, it's a machine doing everything, regurgitating borderline stolen art into pure slop for the enjoyment of absolutely no one and in the service of exclusively a small portion of people who never cared about art in the first place.
The post Indie publisher Hooded Horse issues total ban on AI in its games because it’s a ‘cancerous’ technology appeared first on Destructoid.
As announced, Larian Studios is hosting an AMA, following a massive controversy over generative AI in its upcoming game, Divinity. The studio's devs, including chief executive Swen Vincke, answered all sorts of questions, including those related to this controversial technology.
In the AMA, held on Jan. 9 on the r/games subreddit, a user asked the studio about its use of generative AI. "What is your opinion on the role of (generative) AI in the game development process, and for your studio in particular," they asked, additionally inquiring if the AI is being used in some departments and not in others.
Vincke first said that "there is not going to be any generative AI art in Divinity," saying that a lot of confusion had been caused in the past over how the tech is used, which led the studio to completely "refrain from using generative AI tools during concept art development." This last caused the greatest amount of controversy in December, with players strongly opposed to AI in art in any capacity.
"That way there can be no discussion about the origin of the art," Vincke added.
However, Larian Studios will not give up on generative AI entirely, as Vincke believes it can "help" with speed, allowing for way more iterations and testing that further leads to better and, apparently, more refined gameplay. "We're trying things out across departments," he said.
"Our hope is that it can aid us to refine ideas faster, leading to a more focused development cycle, less waste, and ultimately, a higher-quality game," Vincke added.
Vincke concluded that creative assets could still be generated by AI, but only by AI trained on data created by Larian itself and fed into its seemingly self-hosted model.
"If we use a GenAI model to create in-game assets, then it’ll be trained on data we own," he said, which does confirm AI will be used in art, but only to iterate on what Larian had already created itself, rather than what Call of Duty recently did with Ghibli-filter AI all over the place.
In the same thread, Divinity's writing director, Adam Smith, also noted that no AI is being used in writing whatsoever. While the studio did apparently try to make the technology work for dialogues and other text, it failed to provide satisfactory results, with even the most random human writing ending up being better, so that department seems to be completely AI-free.
The post Larian Studios will ‘refrain from using Gen AI’ in concept art but won’t give up on the tech entirely appeared first on Destructoid.
In a new interview, Masahiro Sakurai outlines the downsides of working with large teams in game development.
The post Masahiro Sakurai Discusses Downsides Of Huge Game Development Teams appeared first on Insider Gaming.
Earlier today Bloomberg's Jason Schreier published an interview with Swen Vincke, the CEO of Larian, the company behind the internet's favourite video game and demonic relationship simulator Baldur's Gate 3. It could not have gone worse for the guy.
Among all the expected pre-release interview talk about how their next game, Divinity, will be making all kinds of improvements over their last game, there was this:
Under Vincke, Larian has been pushing hard on generative AI, although the CEO says the technology hasn’t led to big gains in efficiency. He says there won’t be any AI-generated content in Divinity — “everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves” — but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text.
The use of generative AI has led to some pushback at Larian, “but I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it,” Vincke said.
The quote made an audible record scratch on social media before leading to a ton of blowback from artists and beyond, so much so that Vincke took to Twitter to try to explain himself:
Holy fuck guys we’re not "pushing hard" for or replacing concept artists with AI.
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.
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.
I talked about how we use ML here if you would like to know more.
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.
Which only made things worse! Because instead of explaining himself, all his follow-up showed is that Vincke does not appear to understand what it is that his art teams actually do, or indeed how their art is made.
consider my feedback: i loved working at @larianstudios.com until AI. reconsider and change your direction, like, yesterday. show your employees some respect. they are world-class & do not need AI assistance to come up with amazing ideas.
— anoxicart🍤 (@anoxicart.bsky.social) 2025-12-16T16:20:58.862Z
That's OK, Swen, let me explain it for you! Firstly, any use of AI fucking sucks. It's a creative, economic and societal disaster, so really, there's no excusing its use in any circumstances. That's why people got so upset about the initial quote. But to get more specific, let's take a look at your justification.
Saying you only use AI for "reference" is wild. Artists use image searches and books as inspiration because they are drawing on art (but also everything else from colour palettes to photos to the weather). There's experience there, things they can relate to, be inspired by. There is no inspiration in slop! Everything AI is presenting to you is simply stolen and amalgamated. It's like asking your phone's autocorrect for relationship advice.
If you are using AI to generate ideas to explore, that is using AI in your game. This is duplicitous spin to say otherwise. The entire history of creative industry happened just fine without using AI, there is no need to shoot your game in the foot by using it now.
— RJ Palmer (@arvalis) December 16, 2025
There's an unsurprising tendency across leaders in the tech world (games included) to see art as merely part of something's production line, a box that needs to be ticked before copies can be sold. It's why AI is often justified as something that saves time, or saves money. But with art, that process is the point. The themes and ideas artists draw on, the way they iterate through those ideas with sketches, the work itself is what creates art. There are no shortcuts.
In a lot of ways, Larian was a poster child (alongside folks like Remedy) for how retaining a team and continuing to refine a toolset makes seemingly impossible things achievable. Why spend 2 years talking about how critical this was to BG3's existence--and then say major parts of it don't matter?
— Xalavier Nelson Jr. (@writnelson.bsky.social) 2025-12-16T19:50:58.603Z
Following some controversy, the developers at Baldur's Gate 3 creator Larian Studios have further clarified their use of generative AI. CEO Swen Vincke and other Larian developers held an AMA on Reddit where they answered users' questions about the team's next title, Divinity. They also fielded questions related to reports that the studio was using generative AI in its development process.
"So first off - there is not going to be any GenAI art in Divinity," Vincke wrote in response to a question on Reddit. Last month, in an interview with Bloomberg, Vincke stated that while they weren't using AI-generated assets in Divinity, the team was e …
The CES show floor officially closes its doors at the end of the day, but there's still a trickle of announcements and reveals coming out of Las Vegas. If you're struggling to stay on top of all the new tech, gadgets, concepts, and AI-powered devices as the final day of CES gets underway, we're still rounding up the best hardware and upgrades that have debuted so far so you can quickly get up to speed.
As the show draws to a close for another year, you can still catch up on all of The Verge's CES 2026 coverage here.
Preset scenes are the easiest way to take advantage of color-changing smart lights in a room, but t …
Hooded Horse, a publisher that made a name for itself when it picked up Manor Lords and has since been known to have a keen eye for strategy and city-building games, has drawn its line in the sand on GenAI tech. In an interview with Kotaku, Hooded Horse's chief executive officer, Tim Bender, made it clear that the publisher will not sign studios that use GenAI. The studio has even gone so far as to add a "no f***ing AI assets" line into its contracts, banning any studios that work with it from using generative AI technology in the process […]
Read full article at https://wccftech.com/publisher-hooded-horse-added-no-fing-ai-assets-to-its-contracts-calls-genai-cancerous/
When Larian Studios announced Divinity at The Game Awards 2025, it likely did not think what would follow would be swarms of backlash targeted at the studio and its chief executive officer, Swen Vincke. Not because it had announced a new Divinity game, but because Vincke had made it clear that Larian had been experimenting with using GenAI tools in its development process. Those comments came with considerable backlash, to which Vincke responded fairly bluntly before trying a more measured statement, but that did not stop players and other game developers in the industry who are entirely against the use […]
Read full article at https://wccftech.com/larian-studios-will-refrain-from-using-genai-tools-to-develop-concept-art-will-use-it-elsewhere/
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Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.
.
Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.
In the midst of increasing AI usage across the board, one publisher is taking a firm stance against the technology, labeling it "cancerous." It has therefore issued a total ban on the use of AI in the games it publishes.
The publisher in question is Hooded Horse, known for supporting countless indie games, some of which are immensely popular and successful. Some of its most notable published games include Manor Lords, Against the Storm, Cataclismo, Endless Legend 2, and Darkwood 2, among others. It's certainly one of the most prominent indie publishers on the market, and it's now using its position to fight against what it perceives as a harmful technology.
In an interview with Kotaku, chief executive Tim Bender said the only thing AI ever did was "[make] our lives more difficult."
"I fucking hate Gen AI art," Bender said, adding that Hooded Horse's publishing contracts include a clause for "no fucking AI assets."
Bender went on to say that the publisher "got to the point" where it communicates to its potential partners that no AI should be used, even as placeholders, because there is always a chance it would "slip through" into the final build.
"Because of that, we’re constantly having to watch and deal with it and try to prevent it from slipping in, because it’s cancerous," he said.
Bender concluded by saying that it'd be a "betrayal" of all the people in the company's marketing team who produce all sorts of promotional art if they were to be forced into working with something that relies on generative AI. "I wouldn’t be able to face them if we had that," he said, indicating that this is more of an ethical stance than a PR-related one.
Enforcing these rules is difficult, but I for one believe it's the right course of action. Sure, some of these devs will use AI and mask it well, especially as the technology gets better, but it's important to have rules in place that openly stand in defiance of this worldwide corporate push toward a reality where things are purely artificial, built on the foundations of millennia of human work and effort just so some CEO somewhere could rake in even more cash than he does now.
At least before that selfsame CEO had to produce something of value, something original and striking enough for people to want to experience, so he could rake in the cash. Now, it's a machine doing everything, regurgitating borderline stolen art into pure slop for the enjoyment of absolutely no one and in the service of exclusively a small portion of people who never cared about art in the first place.
The post Indie publisher Hooded Horse issues total ban on AI in its games because it’s a ‘cancerous’ technology appeared first on Destructoid.
