Black Ops 6 Faces Player Outrage Over Alleged Use of AI-Generated Banners. This is Suggest by Their Quality
Did the developers of Black Ops 6 want to save money on graphics? Contrary to appearances, it isn't so obvious.
Some studios approach game development with love and strive to ensure that every aspect of the game is well-crafted, providing players with a great experience. Some are more detached from their projects, and the degree of their refinement raises doubts. Developers can be forgiven for occasional stumbles (bugs, glitches), but what about artificial intelligence?
The use of AI is currently commonplace in the gaming industry, among others, for improving graphics and automating computational processes. However, very obvious and undeveloped cases of its use still cause consternation. In such situations, players feel cheated and ripped off, and it's not a far cry from accusing the devs of wanting easy profit and saving on quality. A good illustration of this phenomenon is the discussion about the game Black Ops 6, where fans accused the banner graphics used in it of being made using AI.
Digital investigation
Fans were disturbed by seemingly innocent details that, in their opinion, inaccurately represented reality. However, the community cannot agree on whether AI was actually used in creating the graphics or not. The situation is complicated by the fact that in the discussion, alongside users who immediately started criticizing the devs' greed, there were also a few people arguing that the accusations were exaggerated.
I'm an artist and I'm very familiar with AI works, and have helped people with DMCA claims and such. This doesn't look like AI to me at all, at most someone traced over AI digitally. It looks hand painted, the skulls look like they could be rendered with stylized filter. To me it just looks like basic rushed concept art, can't see anything that sticks out as AI. The light source is consistent too which usually is a dead giveaway of AI.
-- Quzga
The comment didn't remain unanswered for long:
A lot of the details in the middle pic does not make sense. If they went into rendering phase of a pic, it cannot be a thrown away concept because some areas are even OVER RENDERED compared to even finished work. And then if it's at that rendered stage, why are there unfinished details? This doesn't hold up - they're moving on to rendering, but some areas are still unfinished. And I assure if we get a high definition version of these, zoomed in, all of the brush strokes will not make sense at all.
-- xxotic
Other arguments for using AI include a large number of visual artifacts, bad gun proportions, and even the lack of a trigger. On the flip side, it's hard to agree with either side without a shadow of a doubt: some see details as clear proof of AI usage, while others view them as flaws or a deliberate choice by the artist. This shows how challenging it is to distinguish graphics created with the help of AI from those made without its involvement. The line between craftsmanship and automation is really thinning.
