this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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A touch of AI is all it takes to trigger backlash, as a promising new indie falls afoul of slop skeptics (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 3 days ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
167 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28095114

Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania with an evocative, painterly art style reminiscent of Lies of P and the narrative platformers of Playdead. According to Korean studio Alive Inc, the game had 100,000 wishlists just before its early access launch on August 19, mostly on the strength of a demo available since January 2025.

But what should have been a triumphant early access launch went pear shaped very quickly. At launch, few talked about the quite distinctive worldbuilding or the parry-heavy combat. Instead, all focus was trained entirely on something absent from the popular demo: very obvious AI use.

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[–] paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 2 days ago (10 children)

And then after the backlash, the project director came out thinking the only issue was that the AI didn't look good enough. Yeah bro that was the issue glad you're in charge here to figure it all out.

"If someone asked me what I think about using AI, the honest answer is that I would have to think about it for a long time," the director wrote. "The reason I chose AI was that I believed it could reach a level of expression our existing resources could not, and that it would let us focus more on the game itself, outside of story and cinematics."

He continued: "That was a hasty judgment on my part. Unless AI takes one more leap and reaches a point where no one can tell the difference, what I believed was still closer to an ideal than a reality. I expected some of you would be disappointed by our use of AI. I did not expect it to become this big."

…

"The truth is, we spent a long time trying to tell this game's story with cutscenes made entirely by our own hands," the statement goes on. "The results were devastating every time. We came to believe we could not properly deliver this game's complex, difficult narrative that way, and that is why we turned to AI. But if that choice hurt your experience, the fault is not in the tool. It is in our own shortcomings."

I don't get it how do artists get captured by the Shortcut Machine like this? Genuinely what worm is entering these people's brains where suddenly they don't know or care what art is and just want to ask grok to "make it look cool with dinosaurs and lightning and an erupting volcano." Brother if you can't do what you planned to, change the fucking plans. Those constraints are how we get cool and interesting new works and themed and art directions. People love the ps1-era graphics look and it's not because Square Enix asked chatgpt to generate a Tomb Raider cutscene in the style of Monet or whatever.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

AI boosters are controlling the narrative around AI, and what constitutes as extreme positions on it. They made the general population believe, refusing to use AI, refusing to engage with genAI output, especially if paired with mean online comments, is extremism. Meanwhile they claim the "golden middle road" is using it as a tool, such as an already established artist using it to brainstorm ideas, use it for reference material, or use their preexisting capabilities to fix up the AI generated output. Similarly, pro-AI extremism is being downplayed to "slop posting", especially if it is paired with severe AI psychosis.

Reality:

  • There are now some actual anti-AI extremists. The worst of them would not mind sacrificing a portion of the population to put the genie back into the bottle. Less severe people would just put the tech oligarchy and some AI devs in front of a Nuremberg-style trial, ban the use of LLMs altogether, force AI companies to delete any models that made without consent, try to come up with an international agreement on a global AI ban, etc.
  • Pro-AI extremists are a lot worse in actuality, than just some third world guy posting AI slop as a side hustle or engagement bait, to get ad revenue money. The DOGE boys' excuse for the USAID massacre and the deregulation is that any problem, including 600 000 (!) people dying from USAID funds getting pulled, is that AI deregulation will lead to artificial superintelligence, which will lead to a quadtillion human being living in the solar system in a few centuries. TESCREAL is a fucking cult, that would be too extreme for Shin Megami Tensei, let alone the real world.
  • "Moderate usage" or "rational adaptation" is often a slippery slope. I've seen way too many devs trying to use it as a "tool", only to implement things on AI hallucinated specs and similar shenanigans, with many falling down the rabbit hole of loop engineering and vibe coding, all while claiming the decreased code quality worth the "productivity gains". Said "productivity gains" don't last for too long though.
  • The "I want more ethical AI" crowd are usually hypocrites IMHO. At best, they secretly run their own model. At worst, they're the same as your average AI bro with mild AI psychosis, except usually more leftist and more secretive about their AI usage. I heard that some devs who previously had issues with attributing open source code are those most likely to be in this group, though I cannot confirm due to lack of a solid evidence.
  • Your average "can you please not post AI slop?" people are the real centrists.
  • You're right if you refuse to use AI, you're right to not want to engage with AI slop, even if your aunt disagrees.
[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You can just say that you believe that no one should use AI. You don't got to write so much man.

You're also falling victim to The logical extreme fallacy. You're functionally stripping out every bit of nuance there is from this discussion. Enforcing people into one of two extremism camps.

There's nothing in the world that is like that. That's not how people work.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

You can just say that you believe that no one should use AI.

At least for LLMs, yes. It is the most pragmatic resistance against AI as of now, especially considering how "useful" they are.

Sometimes one extreme is the correct one. Moderation can be a fallacy too.

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