Manor Lords and Endless Legend 2 publisher Hooded Horse has revealed that it has incorporated a clause into its developer contracts that specifically prohibit the use of generative AI.
In an interview with Kotaku, Hooded Horse's Tim Bender excoriates generative AI in no uncertain terms. Bender says he "fucking hate[s] gen AI art" and that it has "made [his] life more difficult in many ways" due to its tendency to "infest shit in a way it shouldn't".
He says "no fucking AI assets" is now written into Hooded Horse's contracts with developers, although I would assume that the terms used are perhaps a little more legally friendly than that. Still, perhaps they're not. Wouldn't that be a fine thing?
Bender says he and his team are "constantly having to watch and deal with [generative AI usage] and try to prevent it from slipping in", calling the technology "cancerous" (in the sense that it grows and takes over large portions of development if undealt with).
The Hooded Horse lead goes on to say that he "wouldn't be able to face" the publisher's marketing artists if the studio used generative AI, but that Hooded Horse is also "committed ethically, for all the...
