Can you please explain this, Cyan

[Hitoshura]

Hey Cyan? You wanna explain why a bunch of content in your game was produced by A.I. tech instead of paying artists and voice actors? All A.I. generated art is made with stolen art. Did you feed back portraits into an AI too? Did you ask them before deciding to feed their pictures into AI? This is unacceptable from the developer who brought us Myst and Obduction.

Originally posted by credits:

A.I. Assisted Content

Journals, logs, checklists, newspapers, stories, songs, poems, letters, loosely scattered papers, all backer portraits, all founders portraits, the 'sunset' paintings, the art-nouveau wallpaper in the Swan dormitory hallways, propaganda banners, coastal spill decal kit, all voiced mentor, announcer, founder, and other speeches backer-exclusive content

Source: https://www.mobygames.com/game/203262/firmament/credits/windows/

[Truffle]

Considering AI didn't really come into prominence until sometime last year, my best guess is that they basically had nothing of note to release a year ago. Then AI came along and they used that to fill in the many many many gaps they still had because they just wanted to be done with Firmament already.

The number of people that have been defending and approving of the choice is equally maddening.

Like this is not even a joke, those backer pictures, that were AI made? That was only for the top tier $5,000. FIVE GRAND?! Five grand and they could not be BOTHERED to make just 20 actual little portraits, that one of their art team likely could've knocked out in two weeks tops given the 'complexity' they were going for with them.

[Exile «Foxy» (Ryder17z)]

Yeah, it's garbage

[Ducatomb]

My gosh! If there's a creative studio that should not use AI like at all this is the one...uneffing real!

[Ryusui]

I backed this game on Kickstarter and now I want my money back. Nowhere did they say that they were going to use AI-generated crap. Especially, as noted, given Cyan has a reputation for the quality of their art, writing, and voicework - entrusting any of these to AI is not only a willing backslide but also an outright betrayal of their longtime fans!

My plan was to wait a few weeks for the game to be patched, but unless they patch all of the AI-generated content out and have actual human beings come back to replace that garbage with real art, real writing, and real voicework, I'm probably not going to end up playing it at all!

[Helium]

Well, this is disappointing

[Ducatomb]

I mean to be perfectly honest Myst is like 30 years old..30!! Riven what 26? That's way over a generation so not sure what older people were expecting. I was done with Obduction to be frank, somewhat excited at first but way done afterwards. Firmament was truly out of curiosity.

[Gate Andara]

This is extremely disappointing. Combined with everything else, I regret kickstarting this game. That's something I never thought I would have said about a Cyan title.

[Ducatomb]

Baffled by the fact it raised almost $1.5Mil! Nostalgia is very very powerful it seems.

[jahmenmyst]

Really? And this is what you focus on? Doubtful if any CYAN FANS care either way how they got the game made and done as long as it's as Cool as their previous games were.
AI or no AI made content as long as the content was good enough for CYAN to put in Firmament is all that really matters.
Obduction was graphically and an imagination rich game, even if the game had some serious playing glitches to it.
The seer beauty of the Ages CYAN makes in their games for us to escape into is all that most fans really care about.
I've waited a week or so to play on waiting for their fixes to Firmament to get done before continuing. Glitches can really suck the fun out of a game fast. So. I've learned to be patient. After all, I waited 4 years for this game and so far I'm not disappointed one bit.

[lousi]

Originally posted by jahmenmyst:

Really? And this is what you focus on? Doubtful if any CYAN FANS care either way how they got the game made and done as long as it's as Cool as their previous games were.
AI or no AI made content as long as the content was good enough for CYAN to put in Firmament is all that really matters.
Obduction was graphically and an imagination rich game, even if the game had some serious playing glitches to it.
The seer beauty of the Ages CYAN makes in their games for us to escape into is all that most fans really care about.
I've waited a week or so to play on waiting for their fixes to Firmament to get done before continuing. Glitches can really suck the fun out of a game fast. So. I've learned to be patient. After all, I waited 4 years for this game and so far I'm not disappointed one bit.

I see it exactly the same way. Why tear down such a great game because of trivialities? Much more important is the work behind it, how much programming is necessary for this. They have truly earned the recognition. After all, they are only doing this work for their fans.
For me, however, it's not only the wonderful worlds they create that count, but also the puzzles and machines that can and must be operated. Figuring out the logic behind them to reach the goal. When I find the solution, there is a loud cry of joy. That's what counts, not whether an AI was used.

[Truffle]

Originally posted by jahmenmyst:

Really? And this is what you focus on? Doubtful if any CYAN FANS care either way how they got the game made and done as long as it's as Cool as their previous games were.
AI or no AI made content as long as the content was good enough for CYAN to put in Firmament is all that really matters.
Obduction was graphically and an imagination rich game, even if the game had some serious playing glitches to it.
The seer beauty of the Ages CYAN makes in their games for us to escape into is all that most fans really care about.
I've waited a week or so to play on waiting for their fixes to Firmament to get done before continuing. Glitches can really suck the fun out of a game fast. So. I've learned to be patient. After all, I waited 4 years for this game and so far I'm not disappointed one bit.

Lol. If you think the visuals is all that fans care about, boy are you sorely mistaken. The worlds they create are indeed beautiful, but their impact is less so if they are lifeless, devoid of any real context and sense that people lived there. Which is the case with Firmament.

I bring up this point a lot, but the 'counting' toy in Riven. It was no puzzle in itself, no devious thing to solve. It was a little learning toy, inside an in-story school. That right there? That's actual world building through environmental story telling. A sign that before you came along, this world was alive, and had numerous stories to tell.

Writing and actual environmental story telling matters as much if not more than "It's pretty."
Both things that CW literally set the standard for and defined the genre at the time.

[dyannenova]

It's not accurate to say that all A.I art is stolen art. There are ways to build A.I. systems that don't require using any copyrighted artist's works. I've worked on systems like that. Adobe has even recently released updates to Photoshop that are powered solely by images that Adobe has the rights for.

You'd have to ask for details on what Cyan means by A.I. Assisted before you can jump to the conclusions that you've leapt to.

[Helium]

Originally posted by dyannenova:

It's not accurate to say that all A.I art is stolen art. There are ways to build A.I. systems that don't require using any copyrighted artist's works. I've worked on systems like that. Adobe has even recently released updates to Photoshop that are powered solely by images that Adobe has the rights for.

You'd have to ask for details on what Cyan means by A.I. Assisted before you can jump to the conclusions that you've leapt to.

Seriously, are you comparing Adobe with Cyan wich has less than 50 employees? What kind of image database can they have if their games need from crowdfunding to be developed?

[dyannenova]

Originally posted by Helium:

Seriously, are you comparing Adobe with Cyan wich has less than 50 employees? What kind of image database can they have if their games need from crowdfunding to be developed?

I don't think you understood my point. I'm not suggesting that Cyan built a tool like Adobe has. But all the credit says is A.I. assisted. There are many, many, different A.I. systems that could have been used and only a subset of those contain any copyrighted works.

I've worked with several small companies that had skunkworks A.I. projects doing fun things because it interested employees.

[Truffle]

Originally posted by dyannenova:

Originally posted by Helium:

Seriously, are you comparing Adobe with Cyan wich has less than 50 employees? What kind of image database can they have if their games need from crowdfunding to be developed?

I don't think you understood my point. I'm not suggesting that Cyan built a tool like Adobe has. But all the credit says is A.I. assisted. There are many, many, different A.I. systems that could have been used and only a subset of those contain any copyrighted works.

I've worked with several small companies that had skunkworks A.I. projects doing fun things because it interested employees.

A.I. assisted can mean literally anything though. Dall E assists a person, they type in a prompt Dall E 'assists' by providing an image, same with ChatGPT "Hey I need to write this code to do this task. Help me" ChatGPT provides the code. Both have assisted the user in their work.

The most I can fathom that MAYBE was properly assisted, was like the 'wallpaper' their artist created one square of it, popped it into AI and asked it to make it bigger with minor variations. Something like that (which is still shameful).

How many AI programs could they even afford access to (whom don't use stolen assets to generate their logic and results)? There are at least three here, animation, sound, and writing.

Wether or not the AI used stolen assets isn't even the main problem here, it is a problem yes. The problem is that a studio with their legacy and reputation used AI to create literally 50% to 60% of what made them famous.

They also did this several years later into development, when every single person who backed it did so under the core belief that every element was made entirely by Cyan, no AI help. With how much AI created for this project I would go far as to say Cyan World's assisted an AI make a game, not the other way around.