The jokes are appropriate. Yet for Nightfall Games, the studio behind The Terminator RPG, which is bringing the eponymous movie franchise to the tabletop, this is no laughing matter. In a post shared by the company on Tuesday, December 19, the studio confirmed that there were at least 16 illustrations from the T2 Judgement Day sourcebook which had been generated through the use of AI.
Rise of the Machines – Or at Least AI Art in Tabletop RPG
This serves as a warning to anyone who tries to push AI-generated artwork on legitimate businesses that did not pay to have it in the first place, but it also indicates that humans cannot be too easily fooled by the disingenuous use of AI. Above all else, though, mistakes of this sort can cost studios. The topic of AI-geneated content has been hot around Hollywood, and tabletop communities, with Wizards of the Coast undertaking a similar course of action against its own contributors and evidence of foul AI play.
The studio’s statement posted on the project’s Kickstarter page outlined how the discovery happened. The contributor had confirmed that they were not using any AI to assist or produce the content, but the project owners made sure to check. The software they used identified a 99.9% match with AI content, pointing to blatant plagiarism and dishonesty.
Luckily for Nightfall Games, the studio does have residential art experts who were able to confirm that the images were indeed created by an AI. Nightfall Games, although discovering the foul play, is in a bit of a pickle, as the company already paid for the work.
“We had been duped and paid out a significant amount of money in the duping,” the project owners stated. The studio has not hesitated to call AI-generated art an act of thievery which won’t be condoned by the studio.
Luckily, fixes have already been applied. The project’s creators, who penned the latest update, assured that their studio will make sure to implement a number of additional checks when working with external artists before issuing payments to said artists.
Duped Out of the Cash and Holiday Broken
Although this case had a lucky ending, and all in all it does Nightfall Games credit to have raised only £76,751 for their tabletop project, but still applying a rigorous standard, it shows that fraudulent artists looking for a shortcut are already out there and landing considerable gigs.
Yet, even the Dungeons & Dragons franchise is evidently not safe from the scourge that is AI-generated content and it’s expected to see more of these acts of dishonesty attempted. If Wizards of the Coast let some content slip through, it would be unreasonable to expect smaller studios to be always on their game.
Yet, Nightfall Games apparently is.