The developer behind the open-world RPG Crimson Desert has issued an official apology after players discovered several instances of AI-generated art in the game. Pearl Abyss posted on X that it released the game with some 2D visual props that were made with "experimental AI generative tools" and forgot to replace them before launch.
We would like to address questions regarding the use of AI in Crimson Desert.
During development, some 2D visual props were created as part of early-stage iteration using experimental AI generative tools. These assets helped us rapidly explore tone and atmosphere in the earlier…
Just a day after Crimson Desert's launch, players took to social media to post reports of potential generative AI usage. Pearl Abyss said on X that "following reports from our community, we have identified that some of these assets were unintentionally included in the final release." Now, the game's Steam page has an AI generated content disclosure, which says that, "generative AI technology is used in a supplementary capacity during the creation of some 2D prop assets" which are later replaced.
Moving forward, Pearl Abyss said it will conduct a "comprehensive audit of all in-game assets and are taking steps to replace any affected content." The developer said that these updated assets will roll out in upcoming patches, and that the team would internally review how it communicates with its player base to provide more "transparency and consistency."
Pearl Abyss isn't the only developer to fail to disclose the use of AI-generated assets in its games. Late last year, Sandfall Interactive was stripped of its Game of the Year and Debut Game awards from the Indie Game Awards for the use of generative AI in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for placeholder textures that were mistakenly left in the game. Like Pearl Abyss, Arc Raiders' developer Embark Studios is going back and replacing AI-generated material in its game after some backlash from its player base.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/crimson-desert-developer-apologizes-and-promises-to-replace-ai-generated-art-183716439.html?src=rss
Twitter is officially 20 years old. In another reality, that might make me kind of nostalgic. I've been lurking and scrolling and tweeting for 16 years; most of my adult life. There was a time when Twitter was a place where some internet strangers became my IRL friends, when I was excited to "live-tweet". When my infinitely more well-adjusted friends would send me memes, I would smugly say "I saw that on Twitter days ago."
Twitter stopped being that place a long time ago, but I don't have any nostalgia for it. I don't really feel anything at all, actually.
Because I can already hear the comments: Yes, I'm still on X. I don't spend as much time there as I did a decade ago, but it's still quite a lot of time, an unhealthy amount, if I'm being honest. My job is to report on social media companies, so I keep (doom)scrolling. That's what I tell myself anyway.
A few of my favorite posters are still around. Dril's still got it. The memes are still, occasionally, good, even though X's recommendation algorithm seems to prefer pointing me toward endless AI slop, boring hot takes from thirsty mid-tier tech execs and blatant engagement bait. X's algorithm — what little we can learn about it, anyway — now relies on Grok's predictions about what you'll like.The same Holocaust-loving Grok that has spewed racism and referred to itself as MechaHitler and declared Elon Musk "the single greatest person in modern history." The same Grok that allegedly generated thousands of images of child abuse material. Hey @grok is that true?
X is not Twitter but it's also not not-Twitter. Last year, an online marketplace startup bought the 560-pound Twitter bird that once adorned the company's San Francisco office and blew it up in a Nevada desert surrounded by Tesla CyberTrucks as part of an elaborate publicity stunt. Dumb? Yes. But also a somehow fitting adieu for "Larry."
It's been 20 years since Jack Dorsey sent the first-ever tweet, which was never even a good tweet anyway. It's been five years, by the way, since he turned that tweet into an NFT (remember NFTs??) and auctioned it for nearly $3 million. It's now functionally worthless. Another chapter in Dorsey's confusing, complicated legacy.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/twitter-turned-20-and-i-feel-nothing-140000602.html?src=rss
Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. There are a whole bunch of neat new games out this week, as well as updates on some interesting upcoming projects.
In case you missed it, the Steam Spring Sale is under way. There are lots of solid deals here, and my credit card is already screaming at me. I've picked up a bunch of games from my wishlist. For instance, at just $3, I couldn't resist snagging Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate.
Meanwhile, over on Bluesky, a prototype from developer Freya Holmér caught my eye. It's for a falling-block game, but instead of filling a container to create straight lines that disappear, it's based around a pivot point. As tetrominos join the mass, it rotates left or right by 90 degrees, adding a new dimension to a well-established format. I'm really hoping Holmér turns this into a full game, as it's a rad concept.
New releases
Given all the bug slaughtering and the jingoistic satire, any Starship Troopers project is going to draw comparisons with Helldivers 2. Fortunately, Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is entirely its own thing.
This is a retro first-person shooter from Auroch Digital (the studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun) and publisher Dotemu. The framing of the game is quite meta: it's based on the experiences of Major Samantha Dietz, who was on the frontlines against the bugs, and it's effectively being used as a military recruitment tool.
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is a blast. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Not that I needed one, but it gave me an excuse to watch Paul Verhoeven's original film again since the game (while having an original story) hits some of the same beats.
The tone is spot on. The writing in the cutscenes, in which Casper Van Dien reprises his role as Johnny Rico from the movies, is funny. You can't tell me that it isn't a thrill to blow up a giant bug with a tactical nuke. Plus, I was tickled by the consequences of "accidentally" shooting a fellow soldier in the training base and all hell breaking loose.
Alas, the pacing feels off — there's a bit too much space between objectives in some levels — and it's a little one-note. Still, it only takes around four or five hours to beat, particularly if you don't care about hunting for secrets.
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! is out now on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2. It'll usually cost $25, but there's a 20 percent discount until March 24.
Retro Rewind is a solid name for a video store rental sim. You'll manage a store in the early '90s — the heyday of VHS — by doing everything from decorating the place, filling shelves with tapes and buying bootleg films to hiring staff, making recommendations to customers and collecting late fees.
My first job was behind the counter of a convenience store that had a small movie rental section, so I've got a tiny bit of experience with calling up customers who have overdue films. That part of the job wasn't exactly fun, but like the idea of running an entire rental store, an experience that's sadly almost extinct.
Retro Rewind - Video Store Simulator is available on Steam (normally $20, with a 20 percent discount until March 24). You can try it out by playing a demo.
In Their Shoes looks like an intriguing spin on the visual novel. From We Are Muesli, this is billed as a mumblecore narrative vein, indicating that it's influenced by films from that subgenre (such as the works of the Duplass brothers, Lynn Shelton and, especially in the early part of her career, Greta Gerwig). Through a few dozen interactive scenes, it follows the intertwined lives and intimate moments of seven people in Milan. Each of these dialogue-focused segments lasts around five minutes. There are timed choices and you can arrange the scenes into a timeline.
You can pick up In Their Shoes on Steam now. The full price is $13, but there's a 25 percent discount until March 31.
For this week's dog game, here is World's Goodest Pup. It's another pooch-based roguelike deckbuilder. This time around, you'll be trying to succeed in the realm of competitive dog shows. After selecting a dog from among three breeds, you'll start building a deck of accessories, tricks and poses and combine them in strategic ways to be most effective in competitions and challenges, which are procedurally generated.
This is a cozy game first and foremost, though. You can spoil puppers in a pet resort that you'll build and treat them with a visit to a dog spa. Cute.
World's Goodest Pup — from Pandamander — is out on Steam (normally $7, with 10 percent off until March 26). You can try it out via a demo.
The release trailer for Bonnie Bear Saves Frogtime made me chuckle, so I had to include it. The latest project from Bonte Avond (the team behind Once Upon A Jester) is a comedy adventure game.
As Bonnie Bear, a bear in a frog onesie, you set out to defeat a local bully in a tactical frog-battling game called Frogtime. As with many real-life trading card games, you'll buy and collect frogs to build a strong army. Most importantly, it seems to be a game about the power of community, friendship and self-worth.
Gunbrella studio Doinksoft is back with another game that has a fantastic name. It's a roguelite, side-scrolling action platformer with shoot-em'-up elements. And it's called Dark Scrolls. It's such a good title that I'm almost mad I didn't think of it first.
There'll be nine heroes to choose from, including a pup named Biscuit and a rat with a saxophone. The game features procedurally generated runs with branching paths, and there's multiplayer support for two-player online co-op. I'm into the Master System-era art style and the utter chaos shown in the trailer.
The Devolver Digital-published Dark Scrolls (still not over that name) is coming to Steam and Switch later this year.
If you think about it, Scrabble is already a roguelike strategy game. Beyond Words takes that a bit further, with tiles that shift and explode, and boards that change up the rules. Much like in Balatro, you'll be modifying, destroying and duplicating tiles as you seek powerful synergies and massive score multipliers. There are more than 300 modifiers and abilities, along with boss battles and optional time-based challenge boards.
What makes Beyond Words particularly interesting is that it's from Steve Ellis and Dr David Doak — who made their names at Rare and Free Radical Design with the likes of GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark and TimeSplitters — and their small team at MindFuel Games. PQube is the publisher of Beyond Words, which will hit Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on April 9. A demo is available on Steam now.
We've learned about a bunch of upcoming music rhythm games lately, and here's another one from Guitar Hero, Rock Band and DJ Hero veterans. Echo Foundry Interactive seems to be hoping that the community-driven focus will help Sound System stand out.
When it goes into early access on Steam (October 16, $25), Sound System will have local multiplayer support. Echo Foundry Interactive plans to add online multiplayer with co-op and competitive modes. Players will be able to create charts for any song they like too.
We've had a dog game (or two) and a frog game. Now it's time to wrap things up with a cat game. In Cat Me If You Can — great title, again — the Earth has frozen and lost its color. Only cats remain. By time-travelling and taking photos of them, you'll gradually restore color to the world.
It's a hidden cat puzzle game from Cosmic Stag Games that's coming to PC, Switch and Xbox in the summer. You'll be able to check out a demo on Steam on April 8.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-retro-starship-troopers-shooter-a-video-store-sim-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-113000133.html?src=rss
A group of former Twitter investors have prevailed at a federal civil trial over Elon Musk's actions amid his $44 billion acquisition of the social platform in 2022. A jury in San Francisco found Friday that tweets made by Musk about fake accounts on the platform had defrauded investors in the company. The jury sided with Musk on other allegations in the case.
It's not yet clear how much Musk will owe in damages as a result of the case but, as the Associated Press reports, it could amount to billions of dollars. Jurors calculated that shareholders should get "between about $3 and $8 per stock per day."
The class action lawsuit, one of several brought against Musk in the months following his takeover of the company, cited Musk’s tweets about fake accounts on the platform. Facing a sinking Tesla share price in the days after announcing he would buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, the suit said Musk made tweets and statements that were intentionally meant to drive down Twitter's share price in an attempt to renegotiate or exit the deal.
The suit called out Musk's May 13, 2022, tweet that claimed the Twitter deal was "temporarily on hold" due to the number of fake accounts and bots on the platform, as well as one a few days later that suggested fake accounts might account for more than 20 percent of users. Twitter's stock dropped significantly following the May 13 tweet.
During the trial, Musk said the tweets were him "speaking his mind" and maintained that Twitter executives had "lied" about the number of bots on the platform, according toKQED. Former Twitter shareholders, on the other hand, said "they sold shares at deflated prices amid Musk’s public waffling."
Musk faced several lawsuits during and after his $44 billion takeover of the company. That includes other shareholder lawsuits related to his delay in disclosing his stake in the company, as well as one from former executives related to unpaid severance benefits (Musk later settled those claims). He also narrowly avoided a trial over his attempts to back out of the deal.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/elon-musk-misled-investors-during-his-twitter-takeover-jury-finds-232033028.html?src=rss
Pinterest's CEO has thrown his support behind an Australia measure banning social media for younger teens and is calling for governments around the world to implement similar bans. "Social media, as it’s configured today, is not safe for young people under 16," Ready writes in a piece published byTime. "We need a clear standard: no social media for teens under 16, backed by real enforcement, and accountability for mobile phone operating systems and the apps that run on them."
Ready is one of the highest-profile tech CEOs to come out in favor of a broad ban on social media for teens. That may also seem like a bold stance for someone who runs a platform with a user base that's more than 50 percent Gen Z, but Ready doesn't think that ban should apply to Pinterest. Pinterest, as he notes, already bars teens under 16 from accessing messaging features and other social features. It also makes teen accounts private by default.
A spokesperson for Pinterest confirmed the company has no plans to change its own policies regarding users under 16, and said Pinterest considers itself a "visual search platform" not social media. Pinterest, like most social media and social media-adjacent companies, doesn't allow users under 13 to sign up.
Social media or not, Pinterest has encountered child safety-related issues in the past. In 2023, NBC Newsreported that Pinterest's recommendation algorithm was surfacing photos and videos of young girls to adults who were "seeking" such content. Some of those users had created Pinterest boards featuring images of young girls with titles like "sexy little girls," their investigation found. The company made profiles for teens under 16 private and "not discoverable" six months later.
According to Ready, Pinterest's popularity with younger users is proof its policies are also good for the company's business. "Our experience shows that prioritizing safety and well-being doesn’t push young people away; it builds trust," he writes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/pinterest-ceo-says-teens-under-16-should-be-banned-from-social-media-but-not-pinterest-211630443.html?src=rss
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