Activision Blizzard artists are criticizing the studio's reported use of artificial intelligence in game development amid a controversial time in the video game industry regarding the technology.
The situation comes as the human cost of AI tools in game development is already being showcased and seen across the industry. A report references internal emails from Activision Blizzard that date as far back as early 2023.
Use of AI in the Video Game Industry
These include alerts of the approval of various AI tools such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion to produce concept art. Then-chief technology officer Michael Vance noted that AI tools were "top of mind" for the company.
There was also word that the studio had secured access to GPT-3.5 and other AI tools that would be used to create concept art and marketing materials for different games.
By the end of the year, there will be a Call of Duty cosmetic made with AI tools that will become available in the game's cash shop, according to MassivelyOP.
This was then followed by the publicized layoffs at both Activision Blizzard and Microsoft that affected many 2D artists. The other artists were supposedly forced to "use AI to aid in their work" and compelled to sign up for AI training.
This was something that the studio continued to do even as it kept reassuring workers that AI tools were being applied to support artists and completely replace them.
A former environment artist who was working on Overwatch, Molly Warner, said that there was a lot of anxiety among artists across the board with AI.
The issue also comes despite some studios, particularly Activision, promising that generative AI would only be used for concept art and other materials.
It added that the technology will not be utilized to make stuff that would make it to the final game, said GamesRadar.
Replacing Human Workers
The Overwatch 2 team's environment art team was also cut in half but it remained unclear if the artists working on the hero shooter were given a similar AI mandate as Activision Blizzard employees.
The video game industry seems to be the biggest one that AI Technology is poised to conquer as its economic might is much bigger than Hollywood's
A recent survey during the Game Developers Conference found that 49% of the more than 3,000 respondents said that their workplaces used AI technology.
A game developer, Violet, said, "It's here. It's definitely here, right now," adding that everyone is seeing the technology get used within the industry. She argued that it was only a matter of how and to what degree, according to Wired.
