Recently Wizards of the Coast have gotten into hot water and it’s all to do with the image you see above. This is a promotional image for some new cards for Magic the Gathering and was displayed on all their accounts. Only… if you look closely at some of the details it’s very clear that this is AI generated art. From certain details not looking right, to the pressure gauge having numbers that don’t make sense and even to the amount of filament in the lightbulbs, it’s clearly AI made.
Now, having AI art inherently doesn’t make it bad but for a trading card game in which it’s very important for the artists to be respected and, more importantly, have a job in making the game using AI art seems very disrespectful. Even more so whwn WotC stated, blatantly, that the art was not AI generated to those who asked. Very silly, and this comment was quite quickly backtracked after more evidence was presented to them.
They they noted that it was actually a third-party artist that submitted this piece, and so it was actually them that lied about this being AI generated, sounds a bit like shifting the blame to me and actually both parties shoud be equally responsible but hey, there’s an explanation at least. I wonder how this trend will continue throughout the rest of this year, wil this be the year of commercial AI art? Only time will tell I suppose.
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.