Wizards of the Coast denies, then confirms, that Magic: The Gathering promo art features...

[midian182]

A hot potato: Not for the first time, Magic: The Gathering / Dungeons and Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast has found itself embroiled in an AI art controversy. After insisting that a promotional image was entirely the work of humans, it has now admitted that generative AI components were used in its creation.

The situation began a couple of days ago when fans accused Wizards of the Coast of using generative AI in promo images for its new Magic: The Gathering cards. The accusations stemmed from small discrepancies in the steampunky items in the background – the gauges, bulbs, wires, etc. They might be small, but it's the kind of tell-tale weirdness that can indicate when something was created by an AI, much like the tech's inability to create convincing hands.

Either you are lying to us or your artist is lying to you. This is blatantly AI, it took me less than a minute to find multiple examples of clear AI generation. pic.twitter.com/ctoWsQGpMu

– Tom Cartos (@CartosTom) January 5, 2024

Wizards of the Coast's response was to vehemently deny the accusations. "We understand confusion by fans given the style being different from card art, but we stand by our previous statement," the company wrote in a now-deleted post on X (via PC Gamer). "This art was created by humans and not AI."

But the accusations and evidence continued to flood Wizards' social media accounts. Artist Dave Rapoza was so incensed that he quit working for the company.

Eventually, Wizards of the Coast admitted it was wrong. "Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI," it wrote.

As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image. (2/5)

– Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) January 7, 2024

The publisher says that the image background came from a third-party vendor. "As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image."

The controversy has been made all the worse by Wizards' history with AI art. Back in August, Ilya Shkipin, a 14-year veteran D&D artist, admitted that he had used AI to enhance his original images in a book called Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, something that the publisher claimed it was unaware of. There were also arguments over whether some art in the 2024 D&D Player's Handbook was created with AI following claims a dwarf was missing an arm, though those allegations turned out to be incorrect.

What's jarring to most people is that following the outrage last year, Wizards of the Coast brought in a strict rule that its artists, writers, and creatives refrain from using generative AI to create its products. Following the latest incident, the company says it is updating its policies regarding how it works with vendors.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/101438-wizards-coast-denies-confirms-magic-gathering-promo-art.html

 

[nnguy2]

Hope someone gets fired over this.

 

[yRaz]

They just fired 800 people, ofcourse they're using AI generated images

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Oh they have learned. They've learned that Trading Card gamers will CONSOOOM product, regardless of quality. They've learned that they can embrace controversy over "problematic artwork" to sell boatloads of reprints with garbage replacement art for elevated priced. No matter how badly they do, their loyal consooomers will line up for the latest plate of slop at every opportunity.

They've learned that nothing short of discontinuing the game entirely will stop their base from forking over their wallets for more cardboard.

 

[yRaz]

Oh they have learned. They've learned that Trading Card gamers will CONSOOOM product, regardless of quality. They've learned that they can embrace controversy over "problematic artwork" to sell boatloads of reprints with garbage replacement art for elevated priced. No matter how badly they do, their loyal consooomers will line up for the latest plate of slop at every opportunity.

They've learned that nothing short of discontinuing the game entirely will stop their base from forking over their wallets for more cardboard.

MTG is fun but it's too expensive to play. A crappy deck costs $50 and if you have any hopes of doing well you have to spend atleast $2000. I know people with magic card collections worth more than a house.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

MTG is fun but it's too expensive to play. A crappy deck costs $50 and if you have any hopes of doing well you have to spend atleast $2000. I know people with magic card collections worth more than a house.

Oh I agree, was never into MTG. But see, Wizards know that their captive MTG audience will happily pay those insane prices for cardboard, and every day they sucker someone new into the crowd.

They have no reason to change, short of consumers growing a backbone and refusing to buy in.

 

[yRaz]

Oh I agree, was never into MTG. But see, Wizards know that their captive MTG audience will happily pay those insane prices for cardboard, and every day they sucker someone new into the crowd.

They have no reason to change, short of consumers growing a backbone and refusing to buy in.

Welp magic is actually pretty fun if you can get into it, but I got into it when it was cheap in the 90s. you can still play for cheap but what we do now is play MTGarena, the online game, and if we really want the cards we just buy it online. You can build decks in MTG Arena and link it to a website online that finds the cards from different sellers and orders them for you

 

[RandomWAN]

I'm really glad I stopped playing in the early 2000s. It was already costly enough to be competitive then. I do miss the game, but the costs are absurd now.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I'm really glad I stopped playing in the early 2000s. It was already costly enough to be competitive then. I do miss the game, but the costs are absurd now.

Competitive anything ruins games. The competitive X wing scene totally burnt the community out with meta strategy.

 

[human7]

Playing devil's advocate: So they used gen AI. Why should we care? I don't understand why they denied using gen AI at first. But what difference does it make?

Maybe the issue is that AI generated stuff is recognizable - and therefore distracting? I don't use gen AI in the image space that much, but I use it in the text space and it is quite easy to recognize unless a prompt to completely change the tone like "talk as if you were Italian" were used.