Mini Review: Dark Auction (PS5) - Compelling Visual Novel Makes Some Generative AI Missteps

Yeap, that's what I'm talking about. I don't want GenAI in creative department for the final product. Have help, have sketches, ease the process etc. But don't put the final product as GenAI. I don't accept that.

I rather enjoyed the game. Had fun characters and an interesting story.

I'm halfway through Chapter 6. Generally don't mind it but I'm not exactly having a blast either.

The auctions lack excitement and emotional weight, the twists are very telegraphed (with weak delivery too) and the characters, while generally okay, could be a lot better. I also feel like they didn't get too much mileage out of the Hitler-related setting, and the handling of it often feels rather gimmicky.

I'll reserve final judgment until I'm all done, but it's feeling like a 5.5 to me at the moment.

Never mind then. Bizarre premise was interesting but no chance I’m supporting Gen AI.

I don't give a ***** about Gen AI tbh. The 'stance' against it will be seen to be nothing but shaking a fist at a cloud.

@1970sGamer this sounds like you’ve never shook a fist at a cloud. You’re missing out dude.

Seems odd to me how some still defend the current use of Generative AI when it noticeably (and significantly) reduces the quality of the finished game, detracting from the experience.
And all this while the moral, and sometimes legal integrity is questionable at best.

Both @Rich33 and @1970sGamer can be right - currently, Generative AI art is still not up to the quality of decent artists and coders (though I'm no artist, so AI does a much better job than my stick figures).

If it continues to improve, it will eventually sweep through multiple industries leaving human creativity in its wake, with plenty of people shaking their fists at the sky.

Some amount of change due to AI is inevitable. The exact details of that change are unknowable. Sadly, the extent of the change will depend more on the technical feasibility than the moral implications, particularly as it becomes more difficult to tell if AI generated the content or not (as is already happening with writing).

@RobN
Maybe I'm being idealistic, and I do respect that your point is very much considered, but too often people these days just look at CAN WE, whereas the question needs to be SHOULD WE.
Things like AI need treating like new medicines with thorough testing/consideration of the implications and future negatives.

I will however leave it there because I don't want to get off topic; though I will add that at least part of my objection at the moment, is that currently the quality implication of some uses of AI is in the most part highly negative, yet it is still being used in the here and now.

It´s worth mentioning, but after the backlash the devs have started to replace the AI assets, in you are interested in giving the game a chance in the future.

"The artwork “Girl with Flowers” has been replaced with a newly illustrated piece by KOHSKE.

We will continue to progressively replace in-game artworks—such as paintings displayed in the corridors—that contain elements inspired by AI reference materials.
No AI tools were used in the creation of the scenario, characters, or UI elements."

@nessisonett It often helps to compare this to older technology. When photography was invented, people were also worried that paintings would disappear.
But then people realised that photography could be just as creative as painting.
It was never a replacement and that's how AI should be treated. Like the first poster said, 'leveraging' is the keyword. Just like how many painters now use photography to start their paintings from. A lot of purists from the past would have considered that inferior art.
The problem with this game seems that they didn't maintain full creative control. It would have been a different story if they would have at least traced that AI art with cel shading and decided which details to keep, with a creative vision in mind. Just look at the guy's juicy butt. That was probably never a deliberate choice.

That's... pretty bad for a visual novel like this. Considering how limited a format a visual novel is in comparison to a normal game, the art becomes an arguably even more important component of its identity.

The time to upgrade and replace AI illustrations and textures is prior to launch.

@PinderSchloss There’s no excuse. The finished game has art produced by generative AI. It’s a plagiarism machine, the models are trained on other people’s art with zero consent, any ‘creativity’ generated by these models is because they stole other people’s work. The counter to this is always people saying “they can just train it on work entirely drawn by the artists”… but then you‘ve just paid a concept artist to draw concepts, which are then fed into a machine to generate concepts. At which point you could have just worked with the concept artist you’ve already hired. Any genuine benefits in terms of time or money saved rely on those models plagiarising work. Otherwise it’s a complete waste of time and you’d be as well hiring real artists.

@fenlix this is great to know! I’m excited to try this down the line

@nessisonett Sorry, I replied to the wrong comment! This was meant for @1970sGamer who was defending it : )
I mostly agree with you. One nuance for me is that, as an illustrator, I've always used reference photos. And those are usually copyrighted works from photographers, that I transformed completely, just like every artist does. The only advantage of using AI for some basic anatomy references is that it feels less like stealing than using those copyrighted photos.
For example, I once had to draw people doing jiu-jitsu. Those are complicated poses and even the most experienced artists would probably use a reference for that. The AI reference I generated was already transformed completely, before I applied my own transformations to it. So for references I think it's absolutely fine. But it's a delicate balance and I don't think most people can count on their own integrity enough to do this right.