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Sure, garbage in, garbage out and all that. The autonomously generated stuff tends toward generic as an inherent byproduct of being a closed loop system. But that doesn’t mean a real artist couldn’t look at some boring ass slop and be inspired to explore new directions.
I think one of the common themes I’m circling these days is that “human in the loop” is a common concept around ensuring outputs from AI systems are acceptable, but a better way to look at it is that generative AI should never have a direct connection to final output. As inspiration or iteration, I think there’s potential value, but ultimately, whether it’s code, art, or content, a human should create what goes out. Using AI for intermediate acceleration is a much healthier approach than the “look how many people we can replace!” angle that’s so popular in tech.
This doesn’t solve any of the many other issues with generative AI these days, but it at least feels like a more sensible approach to the creative concerns.
I have a serious question. To preface: I am no fan of generative AI. I hate the environmental impact, the impact on our workforce, and the risk of further widening the wealth disparity across the world.
That said, do you believe that using generative AI in this case (for prototyping and rapid iteration/visualization of intermediate/non-final design concepts) is worse than, say, artists looking at the freely available online portfolios of other artists for inspiration, provided that they generate the final designs entirely by themselves?
I’m not saying it is or isn’t at this point, but I’m curious if you have a perspective on whether/how this isn’t at least one of the less-bad ways to use AI. It seems kind of like “you can’t stop someone from asking AI for help” levels of usage, not “we fired people to replace their output with slop”.
Right. I’m not saying anything like “Steam must allow all content because free speech” - I’m just saying if someone is trying to make a game with complex or even weird themes, Valve should at least participate in a conversation instead of dealing out irrevocable absolute judgments based on content that isn’t even finished.
I think I read a different article because there are some key factors here:
- (not super important but overlooked here) The “horse” is a woman
- (definitely important) The scene was only an unfinished scene still being worked out
- Valve has given no recourse or appeals process despite good faith efforts
I’m not trying to trash Valve, and FUCK child abuse, but I definitely think Valve should have handled this more fairly. Given the established premise of the game, I don’t think the existence of that scene in an unfinished state was a move consistent with “hey let’s make a pedo game”.
I’ll admit that 100%ing (or rather “100%”ing it - iykyk) it can get pretty tiresome, but I actually found that the backtracking wasn’t too bad because the castle map was so good. For some reason I was able to remember a lot of routes in it, but I couldn’t find my way through the later games for the life of me without checking the map screen every five seconds.
There really isn’t a remaster, just ports. There’s very little to improve.
I think there may have been some voice re-recordings here or there, but otherwise most versions are pretty much the same. I think the Xbox 360 Live Arcade version is missing some unimportant FMVs and some other minor details, but it’s still completely decent.
It was a secret unlockable in the PSP game Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles with an added character and other stuff, but then you have to deal with the PSP emulation or whatever.
I’d suggest either emulating the original or getting it as a PSOne Classic on PlayStation Store unless some other route is more convenient.
It’s possible you’re right, but strategically, I think the Xbox brand is a lost cause on its own. PlayStation is just beating it up and stealing its lunch money at this point. On the PC side, Steam rules the roost and makes money hand over fist running other people’s games on other people’s operating systems. So it looks to me like the only valid move is to see if the combined PC/Xbox ecosystem can compete with either of them or, optimistically, both.
The catch will be that they need to position it properly and we all know how awesome they are at that coughxboxonecough. If they sell it as “buy an Xbox like you always have and it’ll play tens of thousands of PC games too OR buy a Windows PC and it can play Xbox games natively or with backwards compatibility now” then I think they have a shot.
I mean, imagine being able to play every Steam Deck-compatible game on your Xbox console OR your Xbox handheld by default, even if you bought it from Steam. That’s a goddamn value proposition if I ever saw one. Then they just need to try and win market share from Steam through distribution and ecosystem, which would be their next big battle.
Of course, I say all this as though they aren’t going to epically deuce the futon like they always do.
I don’t think they’ll scuttle the brand, I think they’ll make Xbox a standard for compatibility backed up by custom hardware targets. Like the generation after next might be System X and System S, but you could have a custom PC build that certifies as “exceeds System S” and thus any app can reliably run at that level of quality as a guaranteed minimum. You could still buy an Xbox, but it would be more like a Steam Machine. And a handheld would simply be “any System S certified handheld, including the Xbox first party device”.
I used to sing Sub Terrania’s praises long before it was cool. That game is a gem. The development team was a bunch of demoscene madmen who were able to wring miracles out of the Genesis and eventually created IO Interactive, which went on to make Hitman and the upcoming 007 game.
Their later game, Red Zone, is a technological flex like nothing else.
The actual hardware is irrelevant to their success unless they can pull off a Surface Pro type of innovative market lead (which we all know they can’t do anymore).
The only thing that matters is the ecosystem. Make every Windows machine an Xbox. Make the OS lean and portable. Run the same OS and games on PCs, laptops, handhelds, and set-top boxes. That’s it. Then console generations are obsolete and Sony is playing catch up.
The guy has always been a piece of shit so I’m glad more people are learning this.