"Gamers don't want it": Palworld lead says Pocketpair doesn't touch AI because players hate it and artists "like doing stuff themselves"

5 days ago by alessandro to c/pcgaming

"If the gamers don't want it, I guess that's it, right?"
yetAnotherUser 243 points 5 days ago

That's a good business model. "If our customers don't like it, our employees don't like it, and we can do business without it, why should we use it?"

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laz 13 points 5 days ago

Beacuse minimize the effing costs or you fired

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marxismtomorrow 67 points 5 days ago

I'm not sure AI is cheaper now that AI companies are no longer artificially suppressing prices. Especially compared to the PR companies you need to pay if you use AI.

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laz -12 points 5 days ago
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marxismtomorrow 27 points 5 days ago

Except they aren't consistent or reliable, and can't run 24x7 since nearly all agents need to be reset after a set number of tokens.

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a_non_monotonic_function 3 points 4 days ago

Lol, how do you losers tokenmaxxing with that sort of attitude?

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yyprum 2 points 4 days ago

And the stakeholders? Is no one going to think of the stakeholders?!

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rem26_art 101 points 5 days ago

I remember there was a rumor going around Twitter when Palworld first launched that Pocketpair had used AI for some of their character designs, and there was some backlash, but it turned out to be false. Feeling some of that heat, even if it was unwarranted, probably also helped set their opinions on using AI for that kind of stuff.

If gamers don't want it and your own staff doesn't want to use it, no point in wasting money trying to force it.

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jaybone 60 points 5 days ago

Now try and convince the entire tech industry of that last sentence.

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Sineljora 21 points 5 days ago

I am, and I’m doing exactly what it takes to convince the entire tech industry. I’m not buying their shit. They’ll either capitulate or there will be an alternative tech industry.

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mnemonicmonkeys 13 points 5 days ago

I ran into a research article a couple weeks back pointing out that devs that use AI were 25% less productive, despite all "consultants" claiming they should be 25% more productive.

Hopefully the tech industry starts waking up once they start having to maintain the giant mess they've made

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Zos_Kia 3 points 4 days ago

I think the studio is taking the right lesson, but it doesn't necessarily apply to the tech industry.

Software is good when it is average (standard, unsurprising), while entertainment is good when it is out of distribution. By definition, you can't statistically sample good art and get good art at the output.

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Tyrq 1 point 4 days ago

the powers that be also want a plausible deniability machine, so they'll keep propping it up to murder innocent brown people. You know, because reasons.

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mrbigmouth502 2 points 5 days ago

I remember there was a rumor going around Twitter when Palworld first launched that Pocketpair had used AI for some of their character designs, and there was some backlash, but it turned out to be false.

When was that officially confirmed? I've been waiting for an answer to this question for years. I had heard they had denied using AI for character designs, but I wasn't sure if that was true or not.

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Zahille7 1 point 4 days ago

Well I guess the article this post is about could tell you the answer.

But then you'd actually have to read it.

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ZILtoid1991 2 points 4 days ago

Apparently they used some AI generated textures but removed them later. They did have a game that included AI generating images as gameplay.

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slazer2au 64 points 5 days ago

Good.

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Eternal192 63 points 5 days ago

I bought Palworld just to spite Nintendo and thus far i haven't regretted buying it.

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supersquirrel 51 points 5 days ago

AI is the worst kind of bullshit fantasy because it convinces people to dehumanize themselves and others with a condescending sense of inevitability for a future that the technology does not provide any hard evidence for being inevitable.

Human artists are supremely valuable, fuck this "rational" economic system that pretends otherwise.

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Hathaway 7 points 4 days ago path: 0 24320908 24323498, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 9
HoodieGyaru 5 points 4 days ago

YouTube showing me the account that shared this YouTube link makes me feel so creeped out.

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Hathaway 4 points 4 days ago

Hm. Don’t love that.

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xnx 3 points 4 days ago

You have to turn that off in settings or remove the tracker part of the link (everything after the ?)

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supersquirrel 3 points 4 days ago

I love Man Carrying Thing and this might be one of his most important performances yet!

It is rare for an actor's work to completely capture my attention from beginning to end in a performance without my tastes becoming bored or the emotional heart strings the actors crudely pluck in me becoming tired and drawn out, but Man Carrying Thing had me paying attention for virtually his entire performance on this one!

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scutiger 3 points 4 days ago

But there were two guys there... which one was carrying thing?

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supersquirrel 1 point 4 days ago

You are the thing and the two men carry you forming a triangle.

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Drekaridill 48 points 4 days ago

Who could have possibly guessed that artists like doing art!

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Gladaed 25 points 5 days ago

This exclusionary, contemporary AI definition really grinds my gears.

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Alcoholicorn 43 points 5 days ago

What do we call the thing that governs NPC behavior now?

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Gutek8134 32 points 5 days ago

Behavior trees

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fartsparkles 21 points 5 days ago

State Machines?

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elvith 11 points 5 days ago
if (...){
  //..
  if (...){
    //..
    if (...){
      //..
      if (...){
        //..
        if (...){
         //...
        } else {
         //..
      } else {
      //..
    } else {
    //..
  } else {
  //..
} else {
//..
}
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BucketBong 9 points 5 days ago

Voodoo tech

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Ariselas 8 points 5 days ago

fuzzy logic

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scutiger 4 points 4 days ago

It's never been AI, but that's what we called it anyway, and that's what we'll keep calling it.

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Gladaed -18 points 5 days ago

> leftist brain

Or

> Right wing brain

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Alcoholicorn 16 points 5 days ago

Centrist libs just have the biggest brains. So massive they can have so many diverse thoughts drifting around, never to collide.

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Gladaed 1 point 5 days ago

I didn't feel like typing that out and tried to be non partisan.

Guess I should have /s'ed

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Tollana1234567 1 point 4 days ago

plus AI looks very strange in a picture or a video.

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mrbigmouth502 23 points 5 days ago

I really hope they're being sincere about these statements.

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Truscape 7 points 4 days ago

They kind of already went through the ringer with people accusing the pals of being AI generated pokemon (which was disproven by their lead artist).

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drdiddlybadger 17 points 4 days ago

Great. Cause if they aren't paying people to make the game, I'm not paying to play the damn game.

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Jankatarch 5 points 4 days ago

Even if the game is free, I adhere by the rules of "time is money."

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SnowzSan 14 points 5 days ago

See, I don't mind AI if it's used for stuff like NPC interactions and what not, but not for the creation of assets or mechanics.

At least in it's current iteration, AI can stand out like a sore thumb and once you see it, something is taken away from the experience.

I don't think I've played a game where I've seen AI but this definitely applies to other faucets.

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everett 18 points 5 days ago

Which other faucets?

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tacosanonymous 30 points 5 days ago

Bathroom sink, outdoor, utility…

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everett 16 points 5 days ago

Stop, I can only get so wet.

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SnowzSan 2 points 5 days ago

Art, news articles, etc.

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akwd169 5 points 5 days ago

Facets?

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SnowzSan 6 points 5 days ago

The more you know. I always thought faucet was used colloquially like "another faucet of information."

I stand corrected.

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errer 7 points 5 days ago

Almost certainly you’ve played a game where some of the code was AI generated. That’s pretty much impossible to notice.

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SnowzSan 5 points 5 days ago

That's why I've said "once you see it." I'm fully aware of vibe coding and I know it's useful to help speed things along and cut down development time.

I think I was more leaning towards assets than anything else, though I've seen people argue about mechanics and code, so I figured I'd include it.

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MirrorGiraffe 3 points 5 days ago

I don't know any coders who doesn't use any kind of llm help these days. From prompting a snippet to fill blown agents.

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mushroommunk 15 points 5 days ago

Then you're 100% living in a bubble. High. Full time software engineer who does not use LLMs. Most of my friends do not use LLMs. There's way more of us than you think

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MirrorGiraffe 4 points 5 days ago

I'm not saying you don't exist, and I'm happy for you that you have an opportunity to code yourself, but yeah where I'm at it's a slumbering art.

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Badabinski 6 points 5 days ago

Senior software dev here at a company you know of. I was forced to use Claude for a week at my job and it was absolutely miserable. I hate LLMs and don't use them in any way, shape, or form. I do spend a lot of time cleaning up the fucking slop written by some of my colleagues who have no qualms about unleashing them on our codebase which is already bursting with tech debt.

Like, it's gotten to the point where I check potential new dependencies for AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md/Claude as a commit co-author/.cursor in .gitignore before I use them. It's obviously not possible to avoid using code written with LLMs, but I've had too many fucking problems at this point, so I'm going to try.

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MirrorGiraffe 1 point 5 days ago

Oh I agree it creates many problems, especially when going full vibe. I'm a tech lead at a company you will never hear about and we're being pushed to experiment with llms, trying to find ways to increase productivity.

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mnemonicmonkeys 5 points 5 days ago

Engineer/programmer here. Me and my coworker have never used AI to code.

We have a mature codebase, there's no point to have an LLM make code for us.

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chunes 3 points 4 days ago

Hi.

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MirrorGiraffe 1 point 4 days ago

Nice to meet you!

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chunes 0 points 4 days ago

It's more noticeable than you think in execution time, memory usage and file size

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Someonelol 3 points 5 days ago

Ooh instead of the same shitty dialogue from unimportant NPCs they can vary what they say every time you talk to them? That genuinely sounds like it'd improve immersion but we're so beyond that level that I don't find it very appealing at the moment.

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taiyang 8 points 5 days ago

Typically NPC dialogue also serves more than immersion, such as helping the player solve a quest or find a hidden thing. Some are for world building, too, but even that might be risky with AI since you may end up with inconsistencies that would actually be counter to immersion in the long run.

Like, you don't get actors to ad lib whole scripts in a movie no matter how versed there are in the story.

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Zahille7 0 points 4 days ago

Look up the Mantella mod for Skyrim.

General Sam has a great video showcasing what the mod can do. He literally ends up going on a couple random quests with a fuckin bear because some town guards killed the bear's friend. It was awesome.

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shininghero 2 points 5 days ago

The sad part is, it could with a little tweaking.
But that well has been so heavily poisoned by corporate bubble blowing interests, that attempting anything with it is a potential death sentence for your entire project.

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Tollana1234567 2 points 4 days ago

only if the dialogue is already pre-written by people.

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Jotunn 8 points 4 days ago

This is the same studio that gave us AI: Art Impostor. Guess that is how they learned it's hated.

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brucethemoose 7 points 4 days ago

Where is the line of "no AI" exactly?

While the game certainly isn't vibecoded, I would bet some Pocketpair devs used an LLM for a Python script, to figure out something in documentation, to point them somewhere over an error, maybe some Windows issue; you know, utilitarian things.

Artists likely use oldschool ML models in their graphics software, without even knowing it. Or maybe when processing textures to finish them. Or to search through assets, or documentation.

I'm just saying, if you're strict with the definition, it would be really hard to block an entire dev studio from all "AI." It would almost certainly seep in from casual use, legacy integration, or "oldschool" things like image recognition and processing.

It doesn't mean they have to vibecode or ship slop assets, of course. When they say "no AI," that's what I hear, and exactly what I want.

But I think studios, especially larger ones, need to be careful about labels like "100% human," lest something come to light that seems to contradict the guarantee.

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binux 8 points 4 days ago

I imagine by “AI” they mean strictly LLMs from OpenAI and other related sources. It’s more or less a consequence of the term being used as a catch-all by marketing teams even if it’s misleading.

They’ve for sure used machine learning tools in their development process, I have no doubt about that. I mean, that’s literally what code completion is. That’s been a thing for much longer than LLMs though, and it’s really only a supplement to the actual intentions & efforts of the devs using it. Stuff like that is useless if you don’t have any game development expertise.

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brucethemoose -1 points 4 days ago

But see, even in this interview, the lead is dodging code completion questions. As non-devs could interpret that as "AI in the game."

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binux 5 points 4 days ago

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like the interviewee was ever asked about tools like code completion. The article focuses almost exclusively on ‘generative AI’ and PocketPair’s attitude towards its usage in game development. I don’t think it’s fair to consider it a dodging of questions if said questions seemingly weren’t brought up to begin with.

Besides, I doubt non-devs even really know about/understand machine learning tools in game development aside from the standard AI slop machines. For them code completion probably seems more like a standard programming tool as opposed to something more akin to an LLM, especially since most people already know about things like autocorrect through their phones and the like which is pretty similar.

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systemglitch 5 points 5 days ago

I'm buying palworld one day.

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mnemonicmonkeys 2 points 5 days ago

It leaves early access soon. Maybe consider marking the calendar?

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Zahille7 3 points 4 days ago

July 10th to be exact

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mnemonicmonkeys 3 points 4 days ago

No idea why you got downvoted

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Zahille7 4 points 4 days ago

I'm wondering if it's some people upset from another thread just being petty.

Edit: upon looking at my comment history, almost all of them have a new downvote that wasn't there before. I definitely upset someone, apparently, enough for them to go through my entire comment history and downvote each one I've ever made.

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Kn1ghtDigital 4 points 5 days ago

Wise choice, pal world...

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ysjet 1 point 3 days ago

That's pretty rich coming from pocket pair. "We don't use the art and design stealing machine, we steal the art and designs ourselves!"

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IPeaceInYourFace 1 point 5 days ago

Init bro

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Smeef 1 point 4 days ago

Now that is some good marketing.

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Tattorack 1 point 4 days ago

Ironic coming from a studio that used to use a lot of AI. But I guess some people can change their mind.

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SabinStargem -7 points 4 days ago

As a gamer and in most things, I want AI. It is the results that matter to me, not the method. Be it sewn by hand or the loom, the final product has to be good enough to justify my time and money.

The problems come from who and why, which boils down to the feckless elite wanting to exploit and boss around people. As we have seen countless times in the past, corporations never needed AI to be cruel to people.

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GeneralEmergency -11 points 5 days ago

Idk.

The amount of AI "Ash with a Glock to Pikachu's head" Palworld video thumbnails I have seen tell me otherwise.

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potustheplant 9 points 5 days ago

I just searched for palworld videos and found literally 0 videos with a thumbnail that fits that description. Also, a shitty thumbnail to get more clicks is a common practice. It doesn't mean that people want or support AI. Not to mention that, for all you know, those images could've been generated manually.

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GeneralEmergency 0 points 21 hours ago

I've never been hit with one of those "it's me your kid I'm using a friend's phone give me money" scams.

Know that they're real though.

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potustheplant 1 point 11 hours ago

Dude, if they're real and there are lots of them, share an example.

Also, your analogy makes 0 sense. I'm not saying that they haven't popped up for me, I literally searched for them and found no videos or thumbnails that matched your description. If you google scams you'll find lots of examples.

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