LogIn"We don't believe in it."
Pocketpair
Palworld developer Pocketpair opened its own publishing division in January and received over 1,500 LinkedIn invitations in half a day, with hundreds of studios pitching their games to it.
"We don’t want to tell you what to do. We don’t want to take control from you. We don’t want to change your dream or push you to make a certain type of game. We want to give you money, and we want to help you make a fun game," says its website.
But if you want to work with the company, you shouldn't use generative AI in your games. Speaking to Game Developer at Gamescom Asia, Pocketpair's communications director and publishing manager John Buckley said that Pocketpair "doesn't believe" in the tech.
"People are going to say I'm lying, but these are just the hard facts. We don't believe in it. We're very upfront about it. If you're big on AI stuff or your game is Web3 or uses NFTs, there are lots of publishers out there [who'll talk to you], but we're not the right partner for that," he explained.
But he doesn't think that the company's decision will prevent the industry from falling victim to AI.
"I think over the next two or three years we're going to get into this weird era – and you can see it slowly happening now on Steam – of really low quality, AI-made games."
"It's something that has plagued other stores but Steam had been good at keeping them out. But it's happening. This wave is coming, and I think we're going to enter this kind of authenticity market where people are going to slowly say 'no, these guys are really trying to make something special' to fight back."
Buckley believes that the abundance of such games will make players and developers look really hard at every game, trying to understand if it was made with AI, which might raise issues, especially for studios like Pocketpair, which has been accused of using AI since the beginning.
"You know, I can't just come out and start fighting with these people [who make the AI accusations] because that just fuels what's going on," he said.
Meanwhile, Pocketpair has another powerful side to fight: Nintendo is still producing patents to drag the studio through its legal battle.
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