'Palworld' Developer Pocketpair's New Publishing Arm Won't Publish Games With AI And NFTs: "We Don't Believe In It"
Pocketpair, the developer of Palword, revealed that its newly created publishing arm will not publish games with AI and NFTs claiming it doesn’t believe in it.
Back in January, Pocketpair announced the formation of a publishing company, Pocketpair Publishing, that would “support game development through funding, development assistance and publishing for indie game developers and studios.”
The company added, “Pocketpair Publishing promises to take a hands-off approach, providing as much support as developers need without overstepping or imposing strict conditions on the development process.”
However, the company’s Communications Director and Publishing Manager John Buckley told Game Developer that it would not support games using generative AI, web3, or NFTs.
He said, “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.”
While he says Pocketpair doesn’t believe in and won’t be participating in it, he believes the cat is already out of the bag when it comes to AI-made titles, “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,” he added.
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Run it how you want. But how long untill we hear "we have allways supported AI"
The people known for "Pokemon ripoff" not supporting generative AI is peak irony. But very fitting, I suppose.