Square Enix has confirmed that the development team used AI-generated assets in Foamstars. This is in line with Square Enix’s announcement in the beginning of 2024 that it will embrace AI technology in its upcoming products. [Thanks, VGC!]
Kosuke Okatani, the producer of Foamstars, has confirmed that the development team used AI in the game. They used Midjourney to create small art for in-game icons, as well as for the in-game album covers. However, he also states that humans made the majority of the game, such as the core gameplay and designs. Only “0.01% or even less” of the game is AI generated. According to Square Enix, this is more an experiment to see how AI can help with game development.
Midjourney is a generative AI program that creates images from user’s text prompts. In order to create these images though, the program needs to learn from other creatives, which has been highly controversial due to the potential of copyright infringement and plagiarism. The lawsuit against Midjourney and Stable Diffusion revealed that the company has an enormous list of artists that it wanted to copy from. The ethics surrounding AI has been a source of many arguments and debates as companies move forward with this technology. Another AI-related incident this year includes SAG-AFTRA moving forward with an agreement that would allow voice actors to license a digital copy of their voice for video game companies to use in projects.
Foamstars will come out on the PS4 and PS5 on February 6, 2024.
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