Pocketpair Publishing boss John Buckley says “we don’t believe in” AI-generated games
Pocketpair Publishing, the new publishing division created by Palworld developer Pocketpair, as you might’ve gleaned from the title, is getting ahead of developers inevitably pitching AI-generated games by making it clear the company isn’t interested.
“People are going to say I’m lying, but these are just the hard facts. We don’t believe in it,” Pocketpair Publishing boss John Buckley told Game Developer (h/t PC Gamer) “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.”
Pocketpair’s stance on AI-generated games aside, Buckley knows there’s no stopping what’s to come.
“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.”
It’s worth noting that around launch, Palworld was repeatedly accused of using generative AI for its Pal designs, but the studio has vehemently denied this. More recently, it was accused of using machine translation to localize Palworld for various international markets. In this case, Buckley said it’s best not to fan the flames by responding, but he cleared up the confusion around that situation regardless.
“You know, I can’t just come out and start fighting with these people [hurling AI accusations] because that just fuels what’s going on,” said Buckley.
“[Regarding the machine translation accusation], one of their biggest pieces of ‘evidence’ was that because we hadn’t published the individual names of the translators it must be AI. Well, no, this is just poor Japanese culture in general. A lot of Japanese games, the credits will say localization was handled by a company,” Buckley said, adding, “I’m not saying [that it is] right. It’s unfortunate.”
The harrowing reality is that AI games aren’t just an inevitability – they’re already here. And while they’re easy enough to spot right now, it’ll only get harder with advancements in AI. One can only hope storefronts and distributors will step up efforts to label them as such, thereby making it easier for all of us to sort out the trash from the legitimate, human-made games.
