The Saber Interactive C-suite still has generative AI on the brain after CEO Matt Karch quipped earlier this month that he wished he had replaced a fired Rideshare “Stimulator” writer with AI – and then apologized. That whole situation was embarrassing, but there’s more to be had as Saber chief creative officer Tim Willits describes the developer’s ongoing AI experiments.
“We’re going to try to figure out if it works or if it doesn’t work,” Willits tells Eurogamer. The executive designates driving sim Rideshare “Stimulator” – whose new AI disclosure on Steam says contains AI-generated music, voices, localization, plus AI-generated passenger missions – as a practice run. Willits admits, “We don’t as an industry really know how it fits, and consumers don’t really know what they want or they don’t want, so it’s kind of like a disruptive technology that society has seen for a long time.”
Currently, “We don’t actually use it on our projects except for our experiment with Rideshare,” says Willits. “We don’t have an official policy; we don’t use it outright across all our projects.” Saber is otherwise working on a new Stuntman: Hollywood game, Jurassic Park: Survival, and an untitled John Wick game for PS5, but I’m most looking forward to Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival. Saber’s executives will have to try really hard to dissuade me from enjoying that game, out October 8. ’80s-inspired gore beckons me, unlike AI’s siren song – which sounds like the garbage disposal.
But Willits seems to think naysayers like me will soon splash around with AI like babies having tubby time after games like Rideshare figure out its secrets. Willits tells Eurogamer, “Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but somebody will make the Half-Life 2 of AI.”
“I’m making a silly example, but someone will make something that will change people’s minds,” the CCO continues. “When Steam first came out, people were like, ‘I’m not going to put some silly program on my machine!’ Now if Steam went away, the end of the world would happen. I think, give the industry a few years and we’ll figure it out.”
Unfortunately for Willits, much of the industry has seemed to have already figured it out. GamesRadar+’s poll of over 30 major developers revealed generative AI is a wholly unpopular technology, and a corporate IP lawyer even told GamesRadar+ she recommends all studios avoid it since “it’s not worth the legal liability that it brings to you.”
From a consumer’s perspective, I also think there’s a huge difference between an industry-changing service like Steam and generative AI . For one thing, the former provides an actual service. Steam is its own, unique storefront with its own utility, while I’d always prefer a human being to generate a game’s concept art or clever writing than AI, which ultimately can only either chew or spit.
Still, Willits is optimistic. He says about Rideshare “Stimulator,” “It’s important for teams to make small games to keep the lights on – that’s what this is. So if you’re going to take a bet, if you’re going to experiment, you better do it on something small. You don’t want to risk it on something big, because there’s risk there, but somebody will.”
So if someone slid up to Saber and pitched that Half-Life 2 of AI Willits was talking about, the developer would be interested. The CCO says, “If one of our teams came up to us with an idea they thought could change everything, of course we’d try it.” But I’m seriously doubting that there are many people who would want to make it.