Wizards of the Coast denies, then confirms, that Magic: The Gathering promo art features AI elements | When will companies learn?::undefined
I had to step away from Magic and Wizards after the Pinkerton incident, and everything they’ve been doing since just affirms how shitty a company they are.
I didn’t bud light the cards I already own, and I still occasionally play with friends, but I haven’t spent a dime on MtG since, and I may never again.
In the grand scheme of things it means shit. Capitalism gonna capitalism, and ultimately, nearly all capitalist companies are shit. I couldn’t function in this society if I stopped using or spending money with every reprehensible company.
But with Wizards, I felt, “you know what, I just can’t do this anymore.”
“No ethical consumption under capitalism.”
But you can at least do what you can to lessen consumption, however small.
Absolutely agree. I do what I can to reduce my own consumption.
It’s not a huge thing, but I ride my bike to work as much as possible, try to repair and reuse, thrift shop where I can, and make choices like not giving WotC money.
WotC going nose-blind got me to switch from D&D to Pathfinder. Not sure there’s an equivalent for trading card games, unless yugioh became more comprehensible in the last fifteen years
Pokémon.
They were the original creators of the Pokemon TCG, and when TPC decided they’d start printing the cards without the involvement of WOtC, they responded with some “scorched earth” nonsense. These guys have needed to touch grass for years.
That being said, I’m surprised there’s no open source TCG.
An open tcg would be pretty fun and interesting. I’d definitely give that a go if it existed.
Awhile back, I pushed around the idea of a spaceship TCG based on my experience in EVE Online (speaking of out-of-touch companies), but I never went anywhere with it. The idea of having a command structure like MTCG Commander, and the rest of your deck being built to protect it. The capital would only take damage after all support ships were destroyed, sort of like attacking the player directly in YGO. Using planet cards like energy/mana, like you’re harvesting resources from those planets to built ships for your fleet
That sounds super fun. I’d play that!
The problem with an open source TCG is that you need a way to balance it, which can be hard with a distributed group of designers not in communication with each other. You definitely couldn’t design something in a paper format; maybe as a computer card game.
I’m sorry, but that’s not true at all.
It’s not hard to balance it if you treat it like open source software. There’s still an owner that controls what is “official”. If you want to suggest changes, you make a pull request, as you would with software development, which either gets denied or approved by the owner of the official project. If you don’t like the direction the official game is going, you can “fork” it, call it a fork of the original if the license requires it, and you are now the owner of that fork, able to make whatever changes you’d like.
Open Source does not, at all, imply a lack of control. Blender is open source, but the Blender Foundation still has very strong control over what ends up in the codebase.
To that end, you can suggest balancing changes to the game project, and the owner of the project can approve or deny it.
As far as a paper or digital game goes, either one works. If someone wanted to print the cards and sleeve them, they can. We did that for proxy cards in Pokemon.
If someone wanted to create a higher-quality card, they could. Distribution might be difficult, but I can absolutely see someone selling a set of these cards on Etsy. That would be a challenge for whoever is interested in doing so.
The same goes for digital. The official project wouldn’t even have its own game, it would leave that to the creativity of the community and whoever is interested in doing that, and those projects could be listed by the project owner.
It’s not hard to balance it if you treat it like open source software.
It is even if you balance in an open source environment. “Closed source” successful games still have to invest substantial funds to playtesting. In an open source system, you are developing in the open. This is going to split the game already into beta and stable. You also probably aren’t going to get individual cards approved since you need to design around the interactions between cards.
If you don’t like the direction the official game is going, you can “fork” it, call it a fork of the original if the license requires it, and you are now the owner of that fork, able to make whatever changes you’d like.
So now you have multiple versions of the game floating around with sets of approved cards. Unlike M:tG, these sets are developed to not be compatible and it may be difficult to figure out what sets are legal in the version you are playing.
To that end, you can suggest balancing changes to the game project, and the owner of the project can approve or deny it.
And you still have the development process, which is hard to fix once you print cardboard.
If someone wanted to create a higher-quality card, they could.
I’m not talking about foils, but categorically better cards. You are going to have card developers with a vested interest to make sure their cards get played, and that generally means making cards at a higher power level.
I think a lot of what you’re saying is coming from the perspective of a profit motive. That’s certainly one way of looking at it, but I personally wouldn’t start something like this with a profit motive. Personally, the “cool factor” alone would be motivation enough for me, but this would require the game as a whole operating in a way other TCGs do not.
I’m not talking about foils, but categorically better cards. You are going to have card developers with a vested interest to make sure their cards get played, and that generally means making cards at a higher power level.
I also was talking about overall card quality, not specifically foils. Other than that, power creep is always going to be a thing, regardless of the motives of the project owner.
But the nice thing about open source is that if you don’t believe it’s a good idea, you don’t have to participate.
Other than that, power creep is always going to be a thing, regardless of the motives of the project owner.
But it is a major problem for closed source systems which can be made worse if open source methods are used on cardboard. Is someone going to want to keep playing a game when they buy some boosters but find out that some of the people they play with won’t play with those cards? Even worse, there isn’t a uniform way to define formats?
But the nice thing about open source is that if you don’t believe it’s a good idea, you don’t have to participate.
But no one else is participating either. There are fan made TCG’s, but none of them adopted the open source model. There is one body that designs cards and I don’t see that changing. Even then, the trading or collecting part of that hobby goes away; they become Living Card Games instead without the collectable nature of more traditional distribution systems
One could use AI for playtesting; see if there’s overpowered cards, or a single dominant strategy.
A quick search finds this finished(?) project for AI playtesting with some fancy documentation. Seems to have been met with a complete lack of interest. Shame, it looks interesting.
In most existing TCG, artificial scarcity is a meta-mechanic of the game. For many, that’s part of the fun of the “collecting“. It’s fun to collect rare cards because they’re in limited supply.
That said, I think there could be, in theory, an open source way to have artificial scarcity and the fun of collecting. Maybe have a nonprofit that sells official printed cards at cost?
Yeah, I guess it’s actually more accurate to say this would just be a CCG along the lines of Dominion.
I have come across a couple digital CCGs. Not sure if they are any good.
Also, sorry to be a “well actually” guy, but Pokemon TCG was always designed by The Pokemon Company. WotC just licensed the rights to translate the game.
YEAH there it is. I knew it was complicated, just didn’t remember how exactly, I just remember the “scorched earth” weirdness
“In response to losing the license for printing Pokémon cards in 2003, Wizard’s at the time VP, Vince Calouri; launched “Scorched Earth Mode.” In this, Calouri openly threatened Nintendo, telling them that, if they retracted the license, Wizards would flood the market, causing a plummet in product value, and devaluing the product for Nintendo. After the license was indeed lost, Wizards decided to vent the entire supply of a private stocked warehouse in an attempt to make good on their threat. Additionally, former members of Wizards’ playtest staff alleged that, under Scorched Earth Mode, Organized Play had “given up on trying.” This led to many bizarre events occurring, such as officially run Wizards’ “FAT” (Fan Appreciation Tournaments) where entry was the price of 2 packs, but the winners were guaranteed 16 packs as prize. Other times, it meant releasing cards with errors on purpose, to suit the desires of Wizards’ balancing team, such as the Best of Game Hitmonchan.”
I have heard good things about Flesh and Blood TCG. From what I understand, the story behind it is similar to Pathfinder: a WotC partner got pissed at WotCs shenanigans and decided to make their own game.
There are also a ton of great non-collectible deck construction games. Unfortunately, they tend to fail fairly quickly because it is not profitable for local stores to host events. If you want a Magic-like one, I recommend Epic Card Game. It has a free-to-start app for Android, iOS, PC and possibly Mac.
I’m not a ttrpg player, but I followed the OGL nonsense, and that put a pretty bad taste in my mouth. And then they just kept being assholes.
Right now, I don’t need to dump hundreds of dollars into a new different tcg. As it is I’m happy playing with my friends using the cards that I already have.
OotL here, what Pinkerton incident?
Some guy ordered a booster box for pack openings got a set that wasnt released yet. Wotc sent Pinkerton after him to retrieve the product. And yes the same organization of mercs for hire from Red Dead Redemption.
Fucking mob behavior, what the hell!
My parents gave me all of their hella old cards. I don’t think I’ve ever bought cards since I was given so many.
Meanwhile two of my friends can’t afford basic shit because they splurge on cards.
That’s awesome. I used to have a good collection of hella old cards (I started playing when the game launched), sold them and got out of the game for a good decade or so, then got back in.
I won’t sell my cards this time around. I’ll hold on to them for the times we do play.
I think my oldest cards are from alpha? Maybe beta? I know they were bought right when the game came out. I don’t play much because the cards can’t hold up in a game against current cards. Shit’s just too OP nowadays lol
Okay but what should I play then? MTG is just so cool and fun to play! ._.
You’re a grown ass person, you can make your own decisions.
i can excuse hiring mercenaries to rough a guy up for leaking cards, but using AI art is a step too far!
They sent the actual Pinkertons!
Just a quick look at the gauge should be enough.
What’s up with MTGs being cunts?
Capitalism
That doesn’t explain Leatherface.
I guarantee that image came from Midjourney. All its images have the same surreal realistic style.
This is like the third time they’ve been caught doing it too.
I don’t understand the problem people have with AI art, anyone care to convince me how it’s somehow immoral to use a computer for making art work?
Speaking as a professional artist myself, I’d wager that many of the responses you’ve run into are emotional ones. Supporting oneself as an artist was already difficult, and AI generation is an astoundingly powerful tool. For a long time there was a sense of financial security in quieter/grunt background and asset design work such as the WotC backgrounds in this situation. WotC in particular was touted as “one of the companies that actually pays artists to make neat things” in fantasy art circles, and so their fans and artist clients (often one in the same) feel betrayed.
I’m personally a sad-bitch about it because my peers and I have been posting art for one-another and fans online since 2002, our work was scraped, and now people can click a button to ape the look of all of our work without having run across it organically, knowing our names, or being able to, like, say hello to us. I really don’t mean that out of self-importance or ego- the community I grew up in online was all about discovering working artists by word of mouth this way, and getting to know them. So it’s a weird (albeit unintentional) dismantling of a community and “a way that was”, so to speak.
More practically one of my specific worries regarding AI generated images: Illustration in the literal sense of the word means ‘to illuminate’, to make clear’. Think along the lines of technical illustration- biological in my case, but this extends to mechanical parts, manuals, diagrams, medical books. These are situations where clarity is seriously important, and I feel like the deluge of generated images (and the general public’s lack of information about how the image gen works and how to decipher them) will cause harm.
Hopefully that wasn’t too much of a ramble. 🫤 TLDR: It isn’t necessarily immoral, but people are emotional, it’s a big change, and it’s happening really damn fast.
it IS immoral unless you consider theft a moral act.
You wouldn’t download an artist.
i would if i could.
What if you are stealing bread to feed a starving family?
that doesn’t make it right. would it be right to rob a bank if you were homeless? or better yet, is squatting ok if you’re homeless?
One of the big issues is that AI art doesnt have it’s own style. It’s a rough amalgamation of art stapled together and smoothed to remove the seams. The art used to staple together is were this style comes from, but without knowledge of or credit to that artist. The AI doesnt do a creative process only mimicry, it cant create a new movement in art like modernism or surrealism but it can ape those existing movements. This is the problem with it. Stolen artwork stapled together without any new creative ideas thrown in.
It can create new art styles. If for example puntillismo (no idea how it’s written in English, sorry, a painting made of small little dots) didn’t exist, you could tell the AI to do do a painting of an old lady at the beach, the picture painted using small little dots, and with sufficient prompt engineering, you would pretty much create puntillismo.
Most real people do not have their own, completely unique style. They inspire from previous work by other people, in cases like magic or commissioned work get a prompt of what they need to create, etc
Pretty similar if you ask me. Sorry I cant expand more, gotta get to work.
I don’t think this is true though. If you come up with clever inputs you can certainly invent new styles, with AI being your instrument. At the point of plagiarizing, that’s what all artists have done for the entire history of art and I don’t think there is anything wrong with it.
It’s not using a computer that’s the problem. The issue is that generative AI scrapes the entire internet to feed its model without compensating, or even asking, creators for using their work.
Go look up the existing arguments against AI, and write your rebuttal to those, and then debate people about it. More productive for everyone involved.
People are mad to realize something they thought was spiritual and purely human can be reduced to a mathematical algorithm and be generated by machines.
Some claim they’re mad that it’s because the training looked at art without permission to develop the algorithm (which everyone knows all artist do, making those people look like complete hypocrites), but that just sped it up. It would have happened eventually anyway, because the fact is, art is not spiritual or uniquely human, it’s patterns and shapes, which computers are great at.
This seems disingenuous, because you equate algorithm training to human brain. I hope you dont seriously thing the process of looking at and thinking about art is that same for a human artist or an algorithm.
The point were it doesnt equate is the idea of style. Each artist is constantly refining their style of art. But the algorithm doesnt have it’s own style and can only ape a style that already exists.
Hey, don’t claim to represent my opinion if you don’t understand my reasoning. I don’t think art is mystical or spiritual at all, not in the way you’re describing it. Art is absolutely about patterns, and I agree that those patterns are inevitably going to be learned by computers.
My objection is not to “AI Art” in general, but to the specific type of art which is brute-force trained to mimic existing art styles. When organic artists take inspiration, they reverse engineer the style and build it up from fundamentals like perspective and lighting. Stable Diffusion and other brute-force ML algorithms don’t yet know how to build those fundamentals. What they’re doing is more like art forgery than it is like art.
And even then, I don’t really take issue with forgery if it’s done in good faith. People sell replicas of famous paintings, and as long as they’re honest about it being a replica, that’s cool too. Ethically my objection is that AI artists typically “hide their prompts” and try to sell their forgeries as originals.
I don’t get it either. People complain about the theft of Art and that Artist will get paid less, but honestly, they will adapt and move on. Like they always have. Is it fair? I don’t know. But the technology is here, and it is not going away.
Historically speaking, “adapt and move on” is a euphemism for “live in abject poverty if you don’t already have another skillset or income stream.”
For example, look at the Luddites. While the term is now used to refer to people who oppose progress, they were originally a group of craftsmen who opposed the industrialization caused by the invention of the loom. While the tech in itself is objectively good, it was the implementation by the elite class that threatened their livelihoods. They went from making decent livings in their skilled crafts to having the options to either 1) work for pennies in triple shifts at dangerous factories, or 2) fuckin riot.
I’m not arguing on behalf of the Luddites, but context is important. In order for “adapt and move on” to be viable, there needs to be a system in place that values the humans involved.
But what would be the solution? Ban AI for 5 Years? 10? 20? I don’t think that will ever happen. They need to adapt. And they need to do it fast. You can like it or not, but this is the future. And yeah, you can bet I would be upset like hell too if that happened to me, but I would also know that there is no hope in undoing it. And it’s not like there is no upside to this or only for the Elite. The creation of Art becomes available and affordable to millions of people who had either no talent or no money to hire someone. You could say Art gets “freed” from the monopoly of people who are capable of creating it. Like making clothes or building furniture was “freed” this way. It will even increase the “output” of Art. Choosing Human made Art over AI-made is a personal preference then.
Social programs and monopoly busting worked quite well in American history, despite what many people may currently think.
We have governments, they should be for the people. They can craft legislation that protects people and ensures their economic livelihood.
Do not confuse Technology with Monopoly. Of course, you can fight Monopols and you definitely should! But You can’t and shouldn’t stop Technological advancements. And as sooner People realize this, the sooner they can move on and the smaller is the chance they will become totally crushed when they get replaced by AI.
Make no mistake, I am not confusing the two. In fact, the whole point of my previous post is that the problems come from the latter and not the former.
Oh yeah thats true! Fuck Monopols!
Companies need to learn that it’s a vocal minority that cares. Lots of us love AI art, hell I prefer it at times to traditional. Companies will definitely learn because they only care about $$$. The art is way cheaper to produce, and a lot of people don’t care.
Yes, I do care that there will be no jobs in the future, but the issue isn’t artists jobs—it’s ALL jobs. And that means capitalism has to go and UBI come back. Productivity produces leisure time, and the only reason it hasn’t is b/c of billionaires and near-billionaires thanks to capitalism. Anti-ai art people often just don’t get that the issue is specifically capitalism. Time to get rid of copyright, make all AI productivity 100% taxed, and all AI models owned by the public.
