GOG admits using generative AI for “New Year Sale” banner artwork

New year, new GOG

GOG or as it used to be known as, Good Old Games, has been circulating in the news recently mainly due to the ownership of the storefront being sold back to it’s original founder, Michał Kiciński, by their ex-parent company, developers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt. Alongside providing promising news about the storefront’s launcher GOG Galaxy‘s future on Linux operating systems while discussing the pitfalls they’ve fallen in previously with regards to the handling of Red Candle Games Devotion. None the less, the now standalone Polish based storefront has decided to take the challenges the face head on, and assured it’s current and perspective customers that they are ready to keep preservation of our good old games.

It wasn’t until I read the adjoining text from the poster mentioning in the bottom right corner that the Super Nintendo is melting into other objects

This was originally raised on the 23rd January on the GOG Forums under the title “5,000+ patrons and an AI Banner“, where users were quick to notice that the current banner art for the “New Year Sale” was AI generated, at least partially. This then spread to the r/gog subreddit simply titled “AI in the Storefront“. At an initial glance I didn’t see anything wrong with it, one user mentioned that the man in the artwork didn’t match the angle that the TV was pointing but I just assumed the person was watching the fireworks outside. It wasn’t until I read the adjoining text from the poster mentioning in the bottom right corner that the Super Nintendo is melting into other objects, with other users mentioning that it would make more sense European company to have a European SNES instead of the American version, looking at the bottom of the picture it just looks to be a mess of cohesion which is something that generated AI art has historically had issues with, alongside other abnormalities such as the classic mismatching number of fingers.

While the prognosis didn’t look good, many could probably look past this or not even notice it in the first place, others are not happy with this, as usually the employment of generative AI into creative fields results in those creative employees being made redundant due to the belief in cost saving. On the other hand, some users on the GOG forums are accepting that AI in all forms are here to stay, and we should not halt the progress of change, with others also lamenting that this is at the behest of a cost cutting, as while part of CD Projekt, GOG was consistently teetering on the edge of breaking even or losing money which was often dependant on whether CD Projekt released new content or not. One of the consistent requests was to instead bring back GOG’s older mascot “GOG-chan”, an anime girl realisation of GOG, dressed in purple with hair that resembles a galaxy

They would go on to explaining that the “current sale banner is fully AI. Not my work”.

It wouldn’t be until 26th January that an employee of GOG for 8 years would stop by into the forum and give some clarity, while being aware that there were somethings that they couldn’t speak about and wanted to stress that they are by no means speaking for GOG and only giving their own thoughts, they would go on to explaining that the “current sale banner is fully AI. Not my work”.

While some users appreciated the honesty and didn’t expect someone from the GOG team to chime in on this and to instead let the entire thing simmer down, others stood firm in the stance that generative AI has no place in creative industries such as art and doesn’t belong on the GOG storefront. Generative AI has been a hot topic for a while now with many games opting to include it such as Arc Raiders for voice acting, Once Human has used generative AI art inside the game and for marketing materials, and Where Winds Meet has implemented an AI chatbot as part of some of their side missions with users have varying levels of acceptance for them.

It’s disappointing to see GOG embracing generative AI art, but they may not be the only ones dabbling with it as Epic Games had previously come under fire for what appeared to be generative AI art within Fortnite with the launch of Chapter 7, which could mean further adoption within the company, but currently there’s been no indication that the Epic Games Store or Steam have adopted generative AI art in their promotional materials.