CEO of Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse states it will not work with studios using generative AI

Publisher Hooded Horse has taken a hard stance against generative AI in game development, with CEO Tim Bender declaring his opposition to the controversial technology and implementing strict contractual measures to prevent its use in any of the company’s published titles.

The details:

• In an interview with Kotaku, Bender explicitly stated that the publisher is strongly opposed to the use of generative AI in game development, claiming that it has made everyone's job at the company significantly more difficult as technology rapidly advances. As a result, Hooded Horse now prohibits its use while under contract with the publisher. "I fucking hate GenAI art, and it has made my life more difficult in many ways… suddenly it infests shit in a way it shouldn't," Bender said. "It is now written into our contracts if we're publishing the game, 'no fucking AI assets.'"
• Bender explained that this opposition to the technology is not limited to its use in game releases but also during the development process, with more studios using generative AI to create placeholder content. “We’ve gotten to the point where we also talk to developers, and we recommend they don’t use any gen AI anywhere in the process because some of them might otherwise think, ‘Okay, well, maybe what I’ll do is for this place, I’ll put it as a placeholder,’ right?” the CEO explained. “Like some, people will have this thought, like they would never want to let it in the game, but they’ll think, ‘It can be a placeholder in this prototype build.’ But if that gets done, of course, there’s a chance that that slips through, because it only takes one of those slipping through in some build and not getting replaced or something.”
• Hooded Horse's stance contrasts with the views of major publishers, with EA embracing generative AI and others, such as Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Sandfall Interactive, having taken a more cautious approach, utilizing the tech in a limited manner during the development of their titles.