Palworld studio: 'Gamers don't want' AI in games

Pocketpair's head of publishing and communication, John Buckley, said "Gamers don't want" AI in their games, and compared the influx of AI to "early crypto stuff," calling it intrusive and driven by "outsiders looking to get rich quick." He pushed back particularly on AI-generated artwork and assets, saying "We have a lot of artists in-house.

They like doing stuff themselves. There's no reason to get rid of them for the sake of an AI doing it. Just seems pointless." He also empathized with social-media backlash: "Even I, who is in the industry, I just felt like a natural, ugh, why? The rest of your game looks fine.

Did you need to? I think that's going to be the attitude for quite a while." Buckley qualified that AI can be useful as "a search tool or coding assistant," calling that "a very different conversation," and affirmed Pocketpair's earlier refusal to publish games made with generative AI.

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