Manor Lords Publisher Takes Hardline Stance Against Gen AI, Includes It in All Contracts

Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse has taken a strong stance against the use of generative AI, banning its use in games it publishes by way of contract. Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender spoke on the subject and his loathing of AI recently, and addressed how the publisher of Manor Lords is tackling the issue.

Gen AI is everywhere these days, both inside and outside of gaming. It’s use has led to a battleground of opinions, with some gamers decrying the use of AI in games like Call of Duty, and others are celebrating Steam’s stance on informing customers of AI use in games on its platform. Not everyone has a negative opinion of the technology, including some game developers and studios, but clearly Hooded Horse isn’t one of them.

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Tim Bender Says No to AI

In a recent talk with Kotaku, Tim Bender, CEO of publisher Hooded Horse, discussed his distaste for AI art, bluntly stating, “I [expletive] hate gen AI art.” While gen AI is often peddled as a time-saving technology, Bender feels otherwise, stating that he sounds frustrated because “all this thing has done is made our lives more difficult.” He explained that the games published by Hooded Horse have not used gen AI, and that it’s explicitly written in the contracts with the publisher that if Hooded Horse is publishing it, “no [expletive] AI assets.”

The CEO went on to discuss the use of gen AI in other games, including its use in prototypes and development, where the assets are never meant to be seen or interacted with by gamers. For example, Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has recently stated that it will use gen AI to “explore references” that will get replaced with original concept art. Without speaking about Larian directly, Bender pointed out the potential drawbacks with using gen AI in development at all, explaining that some developers could end up leaving behind placeholder gen AI work in a prototype that eventually makes its way to the full game by accident. He says that in order to prevent this, the publisher has to constantly “watch and deal with it and try to prevent it from slipping in,” calling it “cancerous.”

In addition to his general frustration with the use of AI, Bender continued that to him, it’s more about ethics than PR when it comes to refusing the use of AI. He’s concerned about AI technology being trained on work without the original artists’ permission. This particular issue has led to a variety of lawsuits already, with news publications and even the likes of Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin bringing AI companies to court over alleged copyright infringement.

The Attitude Towards AI In the Game Industry

As previously noted, opinions on this topic vary wildly, including in the game industry. Ex-Rockstar lead Dan Houser compared AI to Mad Cow Disease, sharing concerns that the technology would continue to sample its own art, eventually “eating itself.” The Last of Us co-director Bruce Straley said something similar, calling it a “snake eating its own tail,” while Polygon Treehouse creative director Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou released a “No gen AI” seal for indie developers to use in their game listings. However, on the other hand, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has objected to Steam requiring the use of AI to be disclosed in store listings, and Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund continues to defend the use of gen AI in ARC Raiders.

Those who are deeply involved in making the games, like individual developers and actors, seem to have been more inclined to speak out against the technology. There are concerns regarding the potential for jobs to be lost and positions originally held by real people to be replaced by AI, while some developers have felt that using AI GPTs has been more hassle than help when making games. As the technology continues to be used in numerous industries and across the web, it remains to be seen whether it can prove that it’s here to stay or ultimately gets left out of most game development.