“I think over the next two or three years we’re going to get into this weird era — and you can see it slowly happening now on Steam — of really low-quality, AI-made games.”
“This is something other stores have struggled with, and while Steam has done a good job keeping most of it out, the wave is arriving. I expect an authenticity market to emerge, where players will seek out teams trying to make something genuine and special.”
At launch, Palworld faced repeated accusations that generative AI was used to design its creatures — a claim the studio has strongly denied. The game was more recently accused of relying on machine translation for localization in some regions. Buckley said it’s often wiser not to amplify these allegations by engaging publicly, though he did address the specific localization concerns.
“You know, I can’t just come out and start fighting with these people [making AI accusations] because that just fuels what’s going on,” Buckley said.
“[Regarding the machine-translation claim], one of the main pieces of ‘evidence’ people pointed to was that we didn’t list individual translators by name — therefore it must be AI. In many Japanese productions, localization credit is given to a company rather than individual translators,” Buckley said. “I’m not saying that’s ideal. It’s unfortunate.”
The unsettling truth is AI-made games aren’t just a future threat — they’re already appearing. While many are easy to spot today, improving AI will make detection harder. Ideally, storefronts and distributors will adopt clear labeling so players can distinguish between machine-generated output and work crafted by human teams.
Source: gamesradar.com
