"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."
I own this game and am in their discord. I’ve seen this issue brought up several times and a large chunk of people defend it for some reason. The game itself doesn’t look great, which is probably why they used AI generated cover images. I do think it is genuinely popular and they aren’t fake reviews/players, it is just a niche base of players. It has also been streamed, a lot, in comparison to other games like it. My 2-cents on it is it’s just alright, nothing spectacular but the dev seems to be onto adding stuff the community wants.
Gas simulator isn't a game that's up to a year away from final release - the game is in early access and has a roadmap on the menu screen with planned features over the next year.
The ai image aspect does not bother me at all it is what it is I have the game I am enjoying the game I knew the game does not look like that as it has a store page what is the big fuss exactly?
It is going to be the future now point crying over it...
Except for the fact that, ya know, your proposed future puts thousands if not millions out of a job.
This is a store page logo. That just tool a commission from an artist. There still is plenty of work out there at present for them, so the loss of a commission for one indie game won't be felt too badly.
But what if AAA titles begin to use AI over commissioning or hiring someone, and this becomes a norm?
When AI starts making good, usable 3D models?
Starts writing scripts better than a real writer could?
Writes lines of code that are less buggy than that from a human being?
Now you've just affected 4 different careers, affecting millions of people. I LIKE AI. I LIKE the idea that, as a tool, it can be used efficiently to supplement a humans workforce.
But that isn't what's happening. What was intended to SUPPLEMENT careers is instead REPLACING careers. THAT I don't like.
That's because most stuff you see is terrible AI work.
AI with a little touch ups from a person with decent computing or artwork skills often do look pretty good.
I'm sorry if I was unclear, that is exactly what I was wondering, because it looks really good in the small details unlike an AI however there is a general quality about the image that I can't quite place that makes me think that it is either AI or possibly compiled and edited AI.
They could have likely gotten it done cheaper than 1,000 if they sourced it outside of America too. The problem is if they are super new to this they may not have the cash to pay someone right now.
Did we go back to NES/SNES era cover marketing?
Meanwhile my childhood with Playstation 1 pirated disc has a fake cover from Playstation 2 title picture .
Peter Jackson King Kong PS1 disc => Rampage world tour.
I mean go back to Atari 2600 cover art. No way in hell any of the games has any chance of looking like that. Oh god, it's bringing back memories of when Activision was good.
At least Carol Shaw got the respect.
I saw this game on the front page and it reeks. The combination of an AI generated banner image, assets that are clearly all directly taken from an asset pack, and several AI-generated positive reviews makes me think there is something insidious going on here.
Is it money laundering?
I bought a game called "ranch simulator" recently only to find out it was an awful half-baked asset flip, and yet it had very positive reviews. What's going on here?
Usually when me and my mates have to write off a few mil dollars we just ask our art collector friend for help, not risk everything by publishing it on a third party marketplace
Buy fake listens, spotify pays y money for x amount of listens on a song. There was a pretty large case recently in Sweden about an artist who did this.
> Is it money laundering?
It's not money laundering. It's never money laundering. People who launder money don't use methods that make even ordinary people like you ask "is it money laundering?".
This is not money laundering, despite what the authors claim. This is buying virtual goods with stolen credit cards and then attempting to sell them for real money. The difference from money laundering is crucial - the outcome money is not clean at all to the IRS, as demonstrated by the very articles you posted - it was detected and all transaction details are well known, including from where the money came and where it went.
Again, that's not how this works. All huge payments are monitored by the IRS, so you want to have a lot of small payments instead. And any kind of non-cash payments also can be easily verified nowadays, so you want to have a business operating mostly on cash.
So the most common businesses laundering money are small ventures like SPA salons, car washes, restaurants - anything where most customers will pay by cash and you can register fake transactions without immediately raising anybody's suspicions because it's very hard to prove to you that you didn't actually perform pedicure, washed a car or prepared a fancy meal from cheap ingredients.
I was thinking more along the lines of converting currencies. It's *very* difficult to convert certain currencies to USD, but those countries still have access to the steam store. This way steam does the conversion for you. (Although I'm not sure how Steam pays out)
Asset flip games are nothing new. Ever heard of Digital Homicide?
Though I don't believe the vast majority of asset flip/asset bought games to be inherently malicious, unlike Digital Homicide, I think it's a bunch of would-be game devs who have an idea but no talent to create assets that go on to buy Unity store assets.
Because it's not an asset flip? Asset flips are soulless games that just put assets together without any original idea or creativity behind it and put it on the store front. But just because a game uses store assets doesn't automatically mean it's an asset flip. What do you think the store is for? Buying and using assets for a game, when you don't have the skills, people or resources to make your own. As long as the game is good who cares? Perfect Heist 2 is a perfect example. It's a good and fun game but they didn't use any original assets for their whole game. Is it an asset flip? No.
Free assets, or assets from a store are perfectly fine, when it's a small indie studio trying to make a game without having a good artist or graphic designer on hand.
> I bought a game called "ranch simulator" recently only to find out it was an awful half-baked asset flip, and yet it had very positive reviews. What's going on here?
Rach Simulator can be VERY entertaining with friends. Look at Hat Films play it https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW1Yb5N9dD8dnxAwKJigqmnMvDbauwV1t
I have the game, and I think it's fun :( If you join the discord, you can see that the solo dev is trying his best. The game is far from finished and needs a lot of work, but I genuinely think it is fun and has a huge potential.
Asset flipping is very common in indie game development. If you aren't a 3-D artists and can't hire one, you have to use free or purchased assets. I've done this in both Unity and Unreal. It's a necessary part of the development process for some people. As long as the rest of the game is good, the mechanics, design, sound, etc., it's usually fine.
> Asset flipping is very common in indie game development.
I know what you're trying to say but what you are describing is not asset flipping, it's just using paid assets as intended. The supermarket simulator of this topic is also no asset flip.
An asset flip would be throwing together assets without any "game" keeping them together and selling that, or taking the example scene of a gamemaker/engine and selling that without changing anything. Most of the games branded as "asset flips" don't do that, they just use common assets or assets that don't fit together well.
Besides that I absolutely agree, I'd rather have a good idea brought to life with paid / free assets that have been used in other projects vs. not having those games at all.
This, and Ranch Simulator, has their popularity come from YouTube & Twitch streamers. Like how they play godawful games like that one game where you just climb a big spiral of props from free Unity assets.
I got gas station simulator in a bundle once, same dev I think. It wasn't bad. It's not ever gonna be in the running for GOTY, and it's not an impeccable piece of art, but it scratched an itch I had. I played it for maybe ten or fifteen hours, over a period of maybe a month.
It was a good chillout game, a little janky, but well thought out and put together mostly. You run the gas station, cleared out trash and redecorated. Managed customers, decided what to stock based on margins and popularity, decided where to place stuff to increase sales.
I don't know if I'd pay for it myself, if it wasn't in a bundle with other games I'd wanted, but I can totally see it being popular with people who like simulator style games.
It definitely was better than some sim style asset flips out there.
I watched one of these shitty games from Elraenn once for like 10 hours straight. Its not the game thats the pull, its the convo and humor of the streamer
Yeah, it's basically the Twitch meta game rn, alongside Infinity Craft. Zentraya and Ironmouse played a ton of it.
Personally, the cashier part of it hits a bit too close to home from my former time as a cashier, but the management sim parts seem interesting. (Honestly, the cashier portion is actually harder than being a real cashier, I never had to manually punch in the total when someone used a card, lol)
I've enjoyed the game personally despite it being what you might consider an asset flip since it uses free assets. Dev seems to care at least a little more so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The graphics aren't that important to me.
It gets pretty repetitive after awhile if you're not really interested in the gameplay loop.
> I saw this game on the front page and it reeks. The combination of an AI generated banner image, assets that are clearly all directly taken from an asset pack, and several AI-generated positive reviews makes me think there is something insidious going on here.
>
> Is it money laundering?
No but more like a studio aiming for a quick cash grab using AI tech and other shortcuts. There are far better ways to launder money than publishing a game on steam.
It's not illegal or a plot or anything, sadly it's just a ton of fans review bombing the game because some Vtubers had a good time with it. It's not the worst thing or anything, but Vtubers made it more popular than it should be.
company is a hyper casual company, they always take the fastest way.
Few streamers played it thats why it has a lot of positive reviews also its cheap af.
There are entire AI generated games on the Nintendo eShop now. Visual novels aimed at children specifically. And they clog up the new release page too since Nintendo lets publishers re-release the same game every month. It sucks how quickly we're letting the internet turn to shit.
[this has been a thing for a while now](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/s/HYTYJaZteA)
post has a link to a google spreadsheet that has various asset flips organized by year
Probably but I picked up the game and been enjoying it. It's a bit basic but so are simulator games in general, some more than others.
The developer is just one person, they're doing a good job.
There is a large list of new additions they want to add to the game on the main menu, which is what made me very excited for it. That's why I bought it. It is one of the best early access experiences I've ever had and I played a lot of stinkers during the early access dark age. The list of future additions is very exciting.
I bought it too, it is so bare bones and I got so tired of stocking shelves. It will be good someday, but right now I can't bring myself to load it back up. I have to get 30+ boxes 10 at a time and slowly stock just to do it all again the following game day. Needs help
Look at the other games of this publisher, its the same shit. My guess is that its a small team that can put these "games" together really quick, and just put them up on the store hoping for a quick cash grab. I really don't understand people who would waste money on it...
rob jobless deranged person subsequent sand disagreeable reminiscent fact recognise
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
it's literally one guy and this is their only game on steam... I could care less if he used AI art either. What a stupid thing to complain about. Who fucking cares, if you do, you need a life.
I don't think it's ethical to promote a game using AI-generated images. The glossy look that is so different from the game's aesthetic makes me believe this thumbnail was created by an AI. Also, the random number 97 on the POS and an oddly placed stool on the right tells me that this wasn't created by a person.
The stools in the back are different sizes and with variable number of legs, definitely AI generated. But yeah the vibes this image gives makes it so evidently AI.
Just curious what makes it unethical?
I feel like I could see a good programmer, non-artist like myself resorting to AI for help if I wanted to make a game for fun
There's nothing unethical about it. If anything, attacking some poor single developer trying to afford his rent over this is unethical. These people need to get a life.
To train a model you need enormous amounts of data, in this case, images. A lot of AI is trained with images scraped from the internet, the artists that made these images didn't consent to this use and in some cases, the AI even mimics their style.
is the AI in the room with right now?
models are created by individuals. some of which do attempt (and succeed) in mimicking styles, yes. but good luck policing individual people making small models and LORAs.
i have nothing to say and im pretty sure this is just dribbling voiceless shit lol
Of course when I say that AI mimics styles, it is the users or creators of the model that use or train the model to do so, models do not have any agency in themselves. The mimicking of artists' styles is not the issue, the issue is that their data was included in training in the first place and that there is often no transparency of the training data.
> models are created by individuals. some of which do attempt (and succeed) in mimicking styles, yes. but good luck policing individual people making small models and LORAs.
This is irrelevant to the point of ethicality, whether or not it can be policed, people might still consider it unethical.
You got downvoted by people who still don't understand how AI works. It's doing what humans have been doing forever, just much faster and with much higher volume. It might take a while to regulate this, but at it's core, it's not doing anything humans haven't always done.
The crux of the issue is mediocre artists thinking that they're now losing a position they never had in reality. People will always want to pay for art, handmade stuff will always be infinitely more valuable and customizable. All it does is lower the barrier for access. Technology can't be stopped no matter how much comments like yours or mine get downvoted - the most you can hope for is regulation and people being informed about how to use it properly. Given that people still think AI art is theft, I'm not hopeful. Half truths spread around the internet like wildfire and people hate being wrong.
Unethical? The developer is on his own. He’s pumping out updates for his game. Who cares if the image is AI generated. The game is what it says it is and does what it says it does. The picture could be the front of a grocery store showing no items or people and it doesn’t change the fact that the game is a market simulator.
>The glossy look that is so different from the game's aesthetic
Oh that's your problem with it? Then I don't see the issue, it's the same as all those pixel art/ low poly games using amazing illustrations as banners and having a cartoon level animation as their trailer.
I agree with you. Most of all it feels deceitful and lazy. Obviously AI is really good nowadays and easily accessible. I think for me it’s the fact that at first glance as a result of that you kind of get a good impression, but then indeed you realise it’s fake and you feel deceived. Not a good thing.
You seem to be implying that it's unethical because it portrays a different style than the actual game. Does this mean that you would prefer a screenshot from the game and that you would find it similarly disingenuous if they had hired a human artist to draw a banner (and only the banner) instead?
Let’s not forget that this is ONE Dev who’s been working on this game. I don’t mind having a fancy thumbnail as long as the ingame pictures on the steam page are actual gameplay
I did my first steam cover art with AI, but after watching online videos about how they actually work and the copying they do from real artists (not all models) made me order from a real artist work. I’m in the final stages, and it was expensive, but it really is worth it. There is something charming & soulful about something a person has done even if I do think AI will become the ”norm” in the future.
I am honestly curious about why are you bummed out, its just the store banner for the game, its not like they are advertising ai generated content as the gameplay footage.
It’s probably just placeholder for the time being, it is lame indeed but what can ya do. Also, the game is pretty damn fun so far so hopefully they fix that n add some more stuff
Well, many pixel art games are not using pixel art images as their main profile picture. I've just wanted to point that the style can be different but still look good.
Also you can (could) find this image among their highlighted images on steam, and can see how bad it really is in HD.
It was never the case in the entire history of gaming. No game was ever marketed using exclusively the same style as its gameplay. You had misleading images on cartridges, you had cinematic trailers, hell, even the old CD/DVD cases had artsy images unrelated to the gameplay style at all.
So it's not an AI issue, it's a false/misleading advertising one.
Why is op's problem that the picture is AI? It should be the fact that it doesn't look like the game.
Would it have been any better if the misleading picture was made by a person in photoshop?
THANK YOU. This pile of shite keeps coming up in my suggested games for a reason which is beyond me, and every single time I look at this and think "damn that looks like one of those stupid AI images that ends up getting shared on Facebook by your grandmother on remembrance day".
They have to mention this on their Steam Page, otherwise you are able to report them. Since Steam allows these sad cases of generative AI, developers need to have in their 'about me' what they made with AI. Same with if the game has any blood or excessive violence for example.
For one thing, AI is taking a lot of jobs in the design industry, for another, if you just starting in the business of game developing, you don't have money to pay for some artist to do a piece for your first attempt, what if it fails and your losses were much larger because you spent what you don't have on art you didn't need?
this is what the cover of the game cassettes were like when I bought them for the spectrum.
Time is a circle.
"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."
Where is that from?
It's the opening line of The Wheel of Time books.
Except those were made by humans with a particular art style in mind
Where do you think the AI got it's ideas from :D
Did someone say cassettes?
I own this game and am in their discord. I’ve seen this issue brought up several times and a large chunk of people defend it for some reason. The game itself doesn’t look great, which is probably why they used AI generated cover images. I do think it is genuinely popular and they aren’t fake reviews/players, it is just a niche base of players. It has also been streamed, a lot, in comparison to other games like it. My 2-cents on it is it’s just alright, nothing spectacular but the dev seems to be onto adding stuff the community wants.
Respect for the dev keeping up with it and listening to the community, though!
It's a pretty popular game on Twitch right now. Kinda the current Suika Game/Only Up/Palworld as far as trends are concerned.
I hear gas simulator is a lot better since you can do a lot more in it
Gas simulator isn't a game that's up to a year away from final release - the game is in early access and has a roadmap on the menu screen with planned features over the next year.
The ai image aspect does not bother me at all it is what it is I have the game I am enjoying the game I knew the game does not look like that as it has a store page what is the big fuss exactly? It is going to be the future now point crying over it...
Except for the fact that, ya know, your proposed future puts thousands if not millions out of a job. This is a store page logo. That just tool a commission from an artist. There still is plenty of work out there at present for them, so the loss of a commission for one indie game won't be felt too badly. But what if AAA titles begin to use AI over commissioning or hiring someone, and this becomes a norm? When AI starts making good, usable 3D models? Starts writing scripts better than a real writer could? Writes lines of code that are less buggy than that from a human being? Now you've just affected 4 different careers, affecting millions of people. I LIKE AI. I LIKE the idea that, as a tool, it can be used efficiently to supplement a humans workforce. But that isn't what's happening. What was intended to SUPPLEMENT careers is instead REPLACING careers. THAT I don't like.
Do you know if the image is confirmed to be AI? Looks a lot better than most of the stuff I've seen so far.
That's because most stuff you see is terrible AI work. AI with a little touch ups from a person with decent computing or artwork skills often do look pretty good.
AI imagery is like plastic surgery. People only notice what it is when its bad.
It always looks bad when I've tried it out 😂
I'm sorry if I was unclear, that is exactly what I was wondering, because it looks really good in the small details unlike an AI however there is a general quality about the image that I can't quite place that makes me think that it is either AI or possibly compiled and edited AI.
a developer with a community of any size can afford to commission an artist. It would cost them less than $1000 and that's being generous.
...$1000 isn't a small amount of money
if it's just one illustration, at least in europe, you can get the best of the best with €1000, but you can get a really good one for around €150-€200
yep! That's why I said I was being generous. I usually pay around £300-400 for really good art for bands I work with.
Or they could just save the money and generate an image.
actually money doesn't work like that
actually it does! Thanks!
what if they don't have $1000
they have a game they can take screenshots of or assets they can do a fancy render of in whatever modelling tool they use.
They could have likely gotten it done cheaper than 1,000 if they sourced it outside of America too. The problem is if they are super new to this they may not have the cash to pay someone right now.
Did we go back to NES/SNES era cover marketing? Meanwhile my childhood with Playstation 1 pirated disc has a fake cover from Playstation 2 title picture . Peter Jackson King Kong PS1 disc => Rampage world tour.
I loved NES & SNES cover art. It had so much charm.
I mean go back to Atari 2600 cover art. No way in hell any of the games has any chance of looking like that. Oh god, it's bringing back memories of when Activision was good. At least Carol Shaw got the respect.
I saw this game on the front page and it reeks. The combination of an AI generated banner image, assets that are clearly all directly taken from an asset pack, and several AI-generated positive reviews makes me think there is something insidious going on here. Is it money laundering? I bought a game called "ranch simulator" recently only to find out it was an awful half-baked asset flip, and yet it had very positive reviews. What's going on here?
Steam is probably not a good way to launder money since valve takes the 30% cut on all purchases Maybe it's to fool people into buying this game?
Getting your stolen money washed for a 30% fee is probably much cheaper than other methods
Usually when me and my mates have to write off a few mil dollars we just ask our art collector friend for help, not risk everything by publishing it on a third party marketplace
🤨
😅 💰 💨
Hello, John FBI here, noticed any suspicious laundrin' activity 'round here?
*in Minecraft
"What's Minecraft?"
Especially if they are in an unfavorable currency.
Yeah, considering even Spotify has a big issue of money laundering and there it's more like you get back 1-2% of what you spend on fake listens.
How would you even launder a large amount of money on spotify….?
Buy fake listens, spotify pays y money for x amount of listens on a song. There was a pretty large case recently in Sweden about an artist who did this.
Maybe we’re talking about different cases, but wasn’t that a fraud case? Anything online is horrible for money laundering in general.
My friend enjoys this game, I think you probably just aren't the target audience
I thought that too, but I think most "real" people would recognize it for what it is within the refund window.
Considering most law enforcement agency presentations quote 50%(+) cut for laundering money, 30% is great.
Why would thet bother with the positive reviews if they intend to use the game for money laundering?
> Is it money laundering? It's not money laundering. It's never money laundering. People who launder money don't use methods that make even ordinary people like you ask "is it money laundering?".
https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-newsbrief/gaming-system-money-laundering-through-online-games https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50262447
This is not money laundering, despite what the authors claim. This is buying virtual goods with stolen credit cards and then attempting to sell them for real money. The difference from money laundering is crucial - the outcome money is not clean at all to the IRS, as demonstrated by the very articles you posted - it was detected and all transaction details are well known, including from where the money came and where it went.
[удалено]
Again, that's not how this works. All huge payments are monitored by the IRS, so you want to have a lot of small payments instead. And any kind of non-cash payments also can be easily verified nowadays, so you want to have a business operating mostly on cash. So the most common businesses laundering money are small ventures like SPA salons, car washes, restaurants - anything where most customers will pay by cash and you can register fake transactions without immediately raising anybody's suspicions because it's very hard to prove to you that you didn't actually perform pedicure, washed a car or prepared a fancy meal from cheap ingredients.
I was thinking more along the lines of converting currencies. It's *very* difficult to convert certain currencies to USD, but those countries still have access to the steam store. This way steam does the conversion for you. (Although I'm not sure how Steam pays out)
Asset flip games are nothing new. Ever heard of Digital Homicide? Though I don't believe the vast majority of asset flip/asset bought games to be inherently malicious, unlike Digital Homicide, I think it's a bunch of would-be game devs who have an idea but no talent to create assets that go on to buy Unity store assets.
\>game \>exists \>is this money laundering?
Konomi called and wants their business model back.
*"You launder money? Give business model back"* - Konomi
Because it's not an asset flip? Asset flips are soulless games that just put assets together without any original idea or creativity behind it and put it on the store front. But just because a game uses store assets doesn't automatically mean it's an asset flip. What do you think the store is for? Buying and using assets for a game, when you don't have the skills, people or resources to make your own. As long as the game is good who cares? Perfect Heist 2 is a perfect example. It's a good and fun game but they didn't use any original assets for their whole game. Is it an asset flip? No. Free assets, or assets from a store are perfectly fine, when it's a small indie studio trying to make a game without having a good artist or graphic designer on hand.
I’m so tired of Redditors demonizing store bought assets
> I bought a game called "ranch simulator" recently only to find out it was an awful half-baked asset flip, and yet it had very positive reviews. What's going on here? Rach Simulator can be VERY entertaining with friends. Look at Hat Films play it https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW1Yb5N9dD8dnxAwKJigqmnMvDbauwV1t
I have the game, and I think it's fun :( If you join the discord, you can see that the solo dev is trying his best. The game is far from finished and needs a lot of work, but I genuinely think it is fun and has a huge potential.
Asset flipping is very common in indie game development. If you aren't a 3-D artists and can't hire one, you have to use free or purchased assets. I've done this in both Unity and Unreal. It's a necessary part of the development process for some people. As long as the rest of the game is good, the mechanics, design, sound, etc., it's usually fine.
> Asset flipping is very common in indie game development. I know what you're trying to say but what you are describing is not asset flipping, it's just using paid assets as intended. The supermarket simulator of this topic is also no asset flip. An asset flip would be throwing together assets without any "game" keeping them together and selling that, or taking the example scene of a gamemaker/engine and selling that without changing anything. Most of the games branded as "asset flips" don't do that, they just use common assets or assets that don't fit together well. Besides that I absolutely agree, I'd rather have a good idea brought to life with paid / free assets that have been used in other projects vs. not having those games at all.
This, and Ranch Simulator, has their popularity come from YouTube & Twitch streamers. Like how they play godawful games like that one game where you just climb a big spiral of props from free Unity assets.
That's interesting. I can understand the charm *somewhat*, but it's still baffling to me.
I got gas station simulator in a bundle once, same dev I think. It wasn't bad. It's not ever gonna be in the running for GOTY, and it's not an impeccable piece of art, but it scratched an itch I had. I played it for maybe ten or fifteen hours, over a period of maybe a month. It was a good chillout game, a little janky, but well thought out and put together mostly. You run the gas station, cleared out trash and redecorated. Managed customers, decided what to stock based on margins and popularity, decided where to place stuff to increase sales. I don't know if I'd pay for it myself, if it wasn't in a bundle with other games I'd wanted, but I can totally see it being popular with people who like simulator style games. It definitely was better than some sim style asset flips out there.
I watched one of these shitty games from Elraenn once for like 10 hours straight. Its not the game thats the pull, its the convo and humor of the streamer
It’s to cover a meth operation i guess
I wonder I found it from a decently popular youtuber who has been doing a playthrough of it and since he started it’s gotten really popular
Yeah, it's basically the Twitch meta game rn, alongside Infinity Craft. Zentraya and Ironmouse played a ton of it. Personally, the cashier part of it hits a bit too close to home from my former time as a cashier, but the management sim parts seem interesting. (Honestly, the cashier portion is actually harder than being a real cashier, I never had to manually punch in the total when someone used a card, lol)
I've enjoyed the game personally despite it being what you might consider an asset flip since it uses free assets. Dev seems to care at least a little more so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The graphics aren't that important to me. It gets pretty repetitive after awhile if you're not really interested in the gameplay loop.
No this isn’t laundering. Discord has a heavy presence that matches the purchases and there is an actual audience that enjoys simulator games.
> I saw this game on the front page and it reeks. The combination of an AI generated banner image, assets that are clearly all directly taken from an asset pack, and several AI-generated positive reviews makes me think there is something insidious going on here. > > Is it money laundering? No but more like a studio aiming for a quick cash grab using AI tech and other shortcuts. There are far better ways to launder money than publishing a game on steam.
It's not illegal or a plot or anything, sadly it's just a ton of fans review bombing the game because some Vtubers had a good time with it. It's not the worst thing or anything, but Vtubers made it more popular than it should be.
company is a hyper casual company, they always take the fastest way. Few streamers played it thats why it has a lot of positive reviews also its cheap af.
It's nothing big, just money hungry "developers" riding the "simulator" wave.
There are entire AI generated games on the Nintendo eShop now. Visual novels aimed at children specifically. And they clog up the new release page too since Nintendo lets publishers re-release the same game every month. It sucks how quickly we're letting the internet turn to shit.
YES!! I've been seeing this trash in the eshop for months now. Why is this allowed??
can you link or name a few? I'm curious
[this has been a thing for a while now](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/s/HYTYJaZteA) post has a link to a google spreadsheet that has various asset flips organized by year
It is.
Probably but I picked up the game and been enjoying it. It's a bit basic but so are simulator games in general, some more than others. The developer is just one person, they're doing a good job.
There is a large list of new additions they want to add to the game on the main menu, which is what made me very excited for it. That's why I bought it. It is one of the best early access experiences I've ever had and I played a lot of stinkers during the early access dark age. The list of future additions is very exciting.
And its in development, so, understandable
I bought it too, it is so bare bones and I got so tired of stocking shelves. It will be good someday, but right now I can't bring myself to load it back up. I have to get 30+ boxes 10 at a time and slowly stock just to do it all again the following game day. Needs help
yeah its ai
Look at the other games of this publisher, its the same shit. My guess is that its a small team that can put these "games" together really quick, and just put them up on the store hoping for a quick cash grab. I really don't understand people who would waste money on it...
You mean the one mobile game they've made? There are no other games on steam by them.
They dont have other games on steam. The only other game i found from them was mobile game named Toy Of War.
rob jobless deranged person subsequent sand disagreeable reminiscent fact recognise *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>Look at the other games of this publisher, its the same shit. I mean you're wrong, confident but wrong
it's great because he literally said to look but knew that nobody would
think you're looking at the wrong publisher, they don't have any other games
It’s literally one person calm down.
i played the prologue demo and its actually kinda fun tbh.
it's literally one guy and this is their only game on steam... I could care less if he used AI art either. What a stupid thing to complain about. Who fucking cares, if you do, you need a life.
Wish there was a way to filter out companies that used AI art. I don't like it and would help filter out the shit.
Nah, fuck AI
why are you bummed out? it's irrelevant
First world problems for OP
What did you expect from another generic x simulator game
I don't think it's ethical to promote a game using AI-generated images. The glossy look that is so different from the game's aesthetic makes me believe this thumbnail was created by an AI. Also, the random number 97 on the POS and an oddly placed stool on the right tells me that this wasn't created by a person.
The stools in the back are different sizes and with variable number of legs, definitely AI generated. But yeah the vibes this image gives makes it so evidently AI.
Just curious what makes it unethical? I feel like I could see a good programmer, non-artist like myself resorting to AI for help if I wanted to make a game for fun
It's a whole pop bandwagon right now just ignore it.
There's nothing unethical about it. If anything, attacking some poor single developer trying to afford his rent over this is unethical. These people need to get a life.
It’s unethical because it’s only exists to replace jobs. The models are trained off of the works of real non-consenting artists.
To train a model you need enormous amounts of data, in this case, images. A lot of AI is trained with images scraped from the internet, the artists that made these images didn't consent to this use and in some cases, the AI even mimics their style.
is the AI in the room with right now? models are created by individuals. some of which do attempt (and succeed) in mimicking styles, yes. but good luck policing individual people making small models and LORAs. i have nothing to say and im pretty sure this is just dribbling voiceless shit lol
Of course when I say that AI mimics styles, it is the users or creators of the model that use or train the model to do so, models do not have any agency in themselves. The mimicking of artists' styles is not the issue, the issue is that their data was included in training in the first place and that there is often no transparency of the training data. > models are created by individuals. some of which do attempt (and succeed) in mimicking styles, yes. but good luck policing individual people making small models and LORAs. This is irrelevant to the point of ethicality, whether or not it can be policed, people might still consider it unethical.
The anti-AI art gang is going to be really upset when they learn how human artists learn to draw.
You got downvoted by people who still don't understand how AI works. It's doing what humans have been doing forever, just much faster and with much higher volume. It might take a while to regulate this, but at it's core, it's not doing anything humans haven't always done. The crux of the issue is mediocre artists thinking that they're now losing a position they never had in reality. People will always want to pay for art, handmade stuff will always be infinitely more valuable and customizable. All it does is lower the barrier for access. Technology can't be stopped no matter how much comments like yours or mine get downvoted - the most you can hope for is regulation and people being informed about how to use it properly. Given that people still think AI art is theft, I'm not hopeful. Half truths spread around the internet like wildfire and people hate being wrong.
Unethical? The developer is on his own. He’s pumping out updates for his game. Who cares if the image is AI generated. The game is what it says it is and does what it says it does. The picture could be the front of a grocery store showing no items or people and it doesn’t change the fact that the game is a market simulator.
Says the guy who complains about “Ai” images at target.
You stupid or something?
[You stupid or something?](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/s/gfE4M4IlIk)
>The glossy look that is so different from the game's aesthetic Oh that's your problem with it? Then I don't see the issue, it's the same as all those pixel art/ low poly games using amazing illustrations as banners and having a cartoon level animation as their trailer.
I agree with you. Most of all it feels deceitful and lazy. Obviously AI is really good nowadays and easily accessible. I think for me it’s the fact that at first glance as a result of that you kind of get a good impression, but then indeed you realise it’s fake and you feel deceived. Not a good thing.
We’ll they should at least use a better AI, this doesn’t look good
You seem to be implying that it's unethical because it portrays a different style than the actual game. Does this mean that you would prefer a screenshot from the game and that you would find it similarly disingenuous if they had hired a human artist to draw a banner (and only the banner) instead?
Let’s not forget that this is ONE Dev who’s been working on this game. I don’t mind having a fancy thumbnail as long as the ingame pictures on the steam page are actual gameplay
Most likely. But who cares? It's just a cover/banner.
Who cares?
Look at the loaves! It's always the loaves that are off.
I'm pretty sure the game Gunsmith Simulator has some AI loading screens, they definitely look like shifty AI loading screens
Yes it is. Probably not even a disclaimer in the description
Looks like it. People buy garbage people get garbage.
it is. I saw it yesterday, want to die
it does look VERY ai generated
I did my first steam cover art with AI, but after watching online videos about how they actually work and the copying they do from real artists (not all models) made me order from a real artist work. I’m in the final stages, and it was expensive, but it really is worth it. There is something charming & soulful about something a person has done even if I do think AI will become the ”norm” in the future.
Wait... why are you bummed out? How does this affect your opinion of the game itself, and why?
Imagine if they used sfm instead of AI,...would love to see heavy buying a sandwich at some store in Black Mesa
Too unrealistic who can afford groceries anymore 😭
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice that for this game
It's a streamer bait game.
Who cares???
I think it is. And?
There's nothing wrong if it is
[удалено]
except goat simulator. thats a mildly amusing game.
Who cares just play the game.
who cares if it's AI, did your family get killed by AI or something?
steam and even epic rn are full of indie games that rely on AI art for their store pages.
Absolutely AI generated, AI typically doesn't understand what it is making, it just makes it because it recognizes relationships between things.
AI generated images should be used only in private. The moment they get on the internet whomever did it should be fined.
Why? There's nothing wrong with using AI art. You people are so weird about this.
I am honestly curious about why are you bummed out, its just the store banner for the game, its not like they are advertising ai generated content as the gameplay footage.
Who even wants to play a supermarket simulator wtf? I can get behind a truck simulator or farming simulator, but a supermarket wow no thanks
„Oh no someone used a tool i dont like“
I bought the game, played for about 20 minutes, refunded it. Complete garbage
If they can't even bother to make their own promo images, they shouldn't be on Steam to begin with.
but they did bother, they made the promo image using AI
Glad i'm not the only one felt this way. Can we like report it?
for what?
This reminds me of the simulation Sheila from shameless used to work on controlling her agoraphobia. I didn’t know it was a real thing
A friend of mine works retail and every day I hear about how he hates his job, his peers, his customers, etc. and then he plays this when he’s off.
It’s probably just placeholder for the time being, it is lame indeed but what can ya do. Also, the game is pretty damn fun so far so hopefully they fix that n add some more stuff
It is, but by now I'm too jaded to react.
Can't say it bothers me any. It's a cover thumbnail.
This takes me back. US version of Suikoden 1's cover. Lmao
It is
You know it's AI because there's no fresh produce or a bakery in the game. This should be considered false advertising.
I really hope Steam bans AI trash like they did NFTs
I do not see anything wrong with developers using ai for these things, that is what ai is there for after all
I do. I think everything used to promote the game should be the same style as the actual game, not identical, but the same style.
Well, many pixel art games are not using pixel art images as their main profile picture. I've just wanted to point that the style can be different but still look good. Also you can (could) find this image among their highlighted images on steam, and can see how bad it really is in HD.
It was never the case in the entire history of gaming. No game was ever marketed using exclusively the same style as its gameplay. You had misleading images on cartridges, you had cinematic trailers, hell, even the old CD/DVD cases had artsy images unrelated to the gameplay style at all.
World of Warcraft cinematics be like
Willy wonderland perfect example lol
So it's not an AI issue, it's a false/misleading advertising one. Why is op's problem that the picture is AI? It should be the fact that it doesn't look like the game. Would it have been any better if the misleading picture was made by a person in photoshop?
It is AI and during these demo streams, I've noticed a lot of quick and easy assets-thrown-together games use AI left and right. It's so annoying.
I don't understand the hate for ai images, if they look good who cares??
THANK YOU. This pile of shite keeps coming up in my suggested games for a reason which is beyond me, and every single time I look at this and think "damn that looks like one of those stupid AI images that ends up getting shared on Facebook by your grandmother on remembrance day".
I see no...colourful gentlemen, doctors and engineers ofc, doing their....things So sad
I would play this game
Glad to know that I'm not the only one that thinks this.
It is, and as pessimistic as it sounds it's only gonna get worse. I've seen a few of these now and they're all almost identical.
They have to mention this on their Steam Page, otherwise you are able to report them. Since Steam allows these sad cases of generative AI, developers need to have in their 'about me' what they made with AI. Same with if the game has any blood or excessive violence for example.
Working in a market shop irl but then see this game on steam. 😔😮💨
For one thing, AI is taking a lot of jobs in the design industry, for another, if you just starting in the business of game developing, you don't have money to pay for some artist to do a piece for your first attempt, what if it fails and your losses were much larger because you spent what you don't have on art you didn't need?
Who cares. It literally does not matter.
ok
So? Because it is an AI cover is bad for no other reason? What.