I wouldn’t call myself a gamer, but I do enjoy good games from time to time, when I have the time. A couple of years ago, I made my way through Hades and had a blast.

But I do know that the publishing of a triple-A title like Call of Duty: Black Ops takes an enormous effort, tons of human-hours, and loads of cash. It’s also obvious to me that AI has been entering into entertainment workflows, just like it has in design workflows.

Ian Dean, writing for Creative Bloq explores this controversy with Activision using generative AI to create artwork for the latest release in the Call of Duty franchise. Players called the company out for being opaque about using AI tools, but more importantly, because they spotted telltale artifacts.

Many of the game’s calling cards display the kind of visual tics that seasoned artists can spot at a glance: fingers that don’t quite add up, characters whose faces drift slightly off-model, and backgrounds that feel too synthetic to belong to a studio known for its polish.

These aren’t high-profile cinematic assets, but they’re the small slices of style and personality players earn through gameplay. And that’s precisely why the discovery has landed so hard; it feels a little sneaky, a bit underhanded.

“Sneaky” and “underhanded” are odd adjectives, no? I suppose gamers are feeling like they’ve been lied to because Activition used AI?

Dean again:

While no major studio will admit it publicly, Black Ops 7 is now a case study in how not to introduce AI into a beloved franchise. Artists across the industry are already discussing how easily ‘supportive tools’ can cross the line into fully generated content, and how difficult it becomes to convince players that craft still matters when the results look rushed or uncanny.

My, possibly controversial, view is that the technology itself isn’t the villain here; poor implementation is, a lack of transparency is, and fundamentally, a lack of creative use is.

I think the last phrase is the key. It’s the loss of quality and lack of creative use.

I’ve been playing around more with AI-generated images and video, ever since Figma acquired Weavy. I’ve been testing out Weavy and have done a lot of experimenting with ComfyUI in recent weeks. The quality of output from these tools is getting better every month.

With more and more AI being embedded into our art and design tools, the purity that some fans want is going to be hard to sustain. I think the train has left the station.