Stop meifyou’veheardthisbefore, butActivision Blizzardhas once again been accused of utilizing AI-generated art. This time, the dubious practice has allegedly been done in the marketing for an upcomingDiablo ImmortalxHearthstonecollaboration event.
The image features two characters playing Hearthstone together inside a tavern. There’s food and good cheer, and one of them happens to have a circlet partly engraved into her skin. It’s just one of several telltale signs that something didn’t quite go right in the automatically-produced image, and bless the pic’s creator for not realizing it, because frankly, this stuff should be called out every single time. Assuming, of course, this is true. (Which it very probably is.)
Redditors To The Rescue
Look up at that user-edited image, which was wonderfully made by a Redditor who goes by the name Ipyreable. Thethread in question, with its nearly 4,500 upvotes and counting, is filled to the brim with comments that cut to the heart of the matter.
“Guess $158 pets aren’t enough to pay an artist to draw the image for their colab lmao,” Ipyreable kicks things off. “Microsoft loves ai slop more than anyone,” CivilerKoboldproclaims, and thesentimentishardly withoutrecentprecedent, soyeah, I could keep this sentence going with so many links to recent examples, but I’ll curb my enthusiasm for now.
“Less grumbling, and more ‘stop buying things with real money’,” Local_Anything191suggests. Sound advice. I’m not sure which part of the image bothers me the most. Probably the multiple orifices inside the fellow’s ear. You’re only supposed to have one hole in either of your ears, mate. I don’t know much, but I do know that much.
Unfortunately, that Reddit thread was created almost a week ago, and there’s zero indication that Activision Blizzard intends to yank the collaboration pic from public sight. Even so, if this is the new “normal”, it’s good to raise awareness of what’s been happening to the industry, and what will continue happening until and unlesssomethingcan be doneto at least help mitigate the damage.
