Cygames announced an AI studio, and then put up an apology over it

I hope Umamusume series won't be enshittified too soon.

Gen AI isn't used in our products (meaning currently). We're only making an AI studio, which would then lead to gen AI being used in our products :(

Not that it needs saying again, but it kind of does.

We want Passion over Profits.

To know someone, somewhere actually cared about the 'product' they were shipping and not just sales figures. Ai has no soul, and it's an insult to the people spending their hard earned cash on something that they want to collectively share with the Artists who put their heart and soul into it.

If Ai has a soul then it's a stolen one.

What is the purpose of the AI Studio, even? Is this announced anywhere?

(after clicking some links)

hmm they have 4 job listings:

* AI Specialist (image generation)
* Reinforcement Learning Engineer (Game Automatic Play Balance Optimization)
* Language Model Engineer
* Potential Diffusion Model Engineer
Cygames Al Studio Inc.

My interpretation is that they are trying to create in house machine learning and generative AI tools like how large studios have their in house engines. Time will tell.

Last edited by mr-victory on 14 Jan 2026 at 7:52 pm UTC

AI usage? Oh...cya then 👋🏼

I always find the disconnect between enterprise/management and the general public on GenAI absolutely amazing. There's such enthusiasm for GenAI in the enterprise (at least at the owner or senior management level) based on quotes like "38% efficiency gain", which, it turns out, enterprise translate to "wow, we can get rid of 38% of our staff".

I've seen some enthusiasm for GenAI in the general public, but (and maybe I'm in a bubble of my own making now), most people I speak to simply ridicule it, or more often, actively revile it.

(for being based on plagiarism, for its impact on the environment, for job losses, for talking kids/adults into hurting/killing themselves, for kick-starting a new nuclear age, for bumping the price of gaming tech through the roof, for impacting sites by scraping them constantly, for being obnoxiously rammed into people's faces over and over again while being demonstrably worse than simpler or even existing alternatives... take your pick and let me know if I've missed anything)

Fair to say I'll never buy from Cygames now. Here's their creator page on Steam if you want to "ignore publisher".

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43153491

And of course they posted on Twitter. Looking at some of their content, maybe that's the best place for them.

Quoting: scaineI've seen some enthusiasm for GenAI in the general public, but (and maybe I'm in a bubble of my own making now), most people I speak to simply ridicule it, or more often, actively revile it.

The vast majority of people do not care.

Quoting: minidou

Quoting: scaineI've seen some enthusiasm for GenAI in the general public, but (and maybe I'm in a bubble of my own making now), most people I speak to simply ridicule it, or more often, actively revile it.

The vast majority of people do not care.

That's not my experience. Working in an enterprise of nearly 2000 staff, there are plenty of opinions and cooler-chat about GenAI and as I say, most people revile it. Maybe you meant the general public... but again, I see mostly negativity on various social media platforms.

Surveys tend to agree. https://civiqs.com/results/ai_impact

Quoting: scaineI've seen some enthusiasm for GenAI in the general public, but (and maybe I'm in a bubble of my own making now), most people I speak to simply ridicule it, or more often, actively revile it.

There are some people that are quite enthusiastic. In 2024 I met an older man at the end of a guided tour at the zoo and he said that every time he was learning a new tune for whatever instrument that he played he questioned ChatGPT about the specifics of said tune. In hindsight I'd like to know the accuracy of the “information” provided by these queries.

I'm convinced that the real applications of AI that provide a benefit to society are limited to the natural sciences – especially biology – and environmental research where automatic classification is a huge boost in efficiency like trying to determine which Lemurs are scattered in the remaining disconnected forests on Madagascar to prioritize reforestation or to track behavioural changes in animal populations caused by changes in the environment.

––

I think you've missed what the Daily Show showed with the “circle” animation – the (incredibly dangerous) artificial inflation of the financial system.

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Edit: I forgot to mention that the Cygames post reminds me of Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister.

Last edited by Klaas on 14 Jan 2026 at 6:08 pm UTC

Quoting: scaineI always find the disconnect between enterprise/management and the general public on GenAI absolutely amazing.

I'm terribly confused by the disconnect between online realms (Gol, discord, reddit, you name it) and real life interactions. People I talk to take chatbots as a given and use them all the time. I use chatbots not so often (and when I do, mostly for research, it is just so good at that) because the few times I used them I noticed mistakes.

People from Cygames' community that complain about the idea of them using AI are such hypocrite. Cygames is a gacha-making company that exploits gambling addicts for profit.

Last edited by dindon on 14 Jan 2026 at 7:55 pm UTC

I've notice a difference in how Japanese people view AI usable its much more relaxed and not really seen as anything bad. I have a Japanese 3d artist that has started to used AI (he has trained a model himself and released it publicly) and he released a music video with heavy AI use and the Japanese comments doesn't really bring up AI usage at all but every English comment is PLEASE DON'T USE AI and others saying they lost respect for him. So it maybe that Cygames genuinely never expected the back lash.
Now my sample size is small just being with in one guys community so I might be wrong but this is what I've observed.

We all live in our own bubbles. I thought people didn't really care either, until more people in my own life starting talking about how they're using it. Plenty of them just switching off when I mentioned the dangers of blindly trusting things like ChatGPT.

Quoting: scaineI always find the disconnect between enterprise/management and the general public on GenAI absolutely amazing.

It blows me away that no one in the Marketing Department says, “There are people out there that passionately hate GenAI. Maybe we should spin this differently. We will probably get flamed for this.” Instead it’s, “lets run with a press release that says we are cheap, evil and don’t care about our employees.”

Quoting: dindonPeople from Cygames' community that complain about the idea of them using AI are such hypocrite. Cygames is a gacha-making company that exploits gambling addicts for profit.

there are some people who see both things are wrong, just one of then or neither, i dont see the issue here.

afaik , japan has an culture of gacha since the days before gaming was a thing (see gachapon), and they also value artists a lot, with their huge culture for anime, manga and stuff like that so i can see why they would reject ai when(if) they know about the plagiarism involved, but im not sure its the same community that despise it.

Quoting: SzkodnixI hope Umamusume series won't be enshittified too soon.

Brother, Umamusume IS the enshittification game.

I remember the time before Umamusume. When projects were allowed to make a decent profit, and player goodwill was the priority. A lot of free resources, rates were permissive, events weren't excessively monetized.

If you want to look at what post-Uma Cygames looks like, look at Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond. I play that game, and I would rather spend money on the physical Shadowverse Evolve TCG despite them costing more due to how greedy the monetization in SVWB is.

This is the only important part of the corporate blabla:

urthermore, we won't implement generative AI into our products without prior notice.

So the only thing they are saying is that they'll do it anyway, they'll just tell you about it.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPThis is the only important part of the corporate blabla:

urthermore, we won't implement generative AI into our products without prior notice.

So the only thing they are saying is that they'll do it anyway, they'll just tell you about it.

... which I'm fine with. Have an informed decision.

Quoting: LoftyWe want Passion over Profits.

This sounds great, and I agree when it comes to art/games and even life in general, but I don't think this statement stands up to scrutiny. Do you, and/or how many people do you know, that work a job they are passionate for versus a job that pays the most?

I know there is a limit when more money does not matter, but from what I understand that is somewhere around 75-100kUSD/year. Most people (in the whole world) don't make that much. Hell, the median income (individual) in the USA is only ~40k. I don't think people are working these "low" paying jobs because they are passionate. I think they are taking whatever they can get.

As the old saying goes, money talks and bullshit walks.

I'm not saying this is good/right, it simply is the shitty nature of our for profit (and put a price tag on everything) world.

Quoting: eggrole

Quoting: LoftyWe want Passion over Profits.

This sounds great, and I agree when it comes to art/games and even life in general, but I don't think this statement stands up to scrutiny. Do you, and/or how many people do you know, that work a job they are passionate for versus a job that pays the most?

I know there is a limit when more money does not matter, but from what I understand that is somewhere around 75-100kUSD/year. Most people (in the whole world) don't make that much. Hell, the median income (individual) in the USA is only ~40k. I don't think people are working these "low" paying jobs because they are passionate. I think they are taking whatever they can get.

As the old saying goes, money talks and bullshit walks.

I'm not saying this is good/right, it simply is the shitty nature of our for profit (and put a price tag on everything) world.

I think you missed my point that as Ai skeptical consumers it's what we want (as literally stated) it's not what the 'company' wants.

And yes i can delineate the difference between the Artist/coding and the management structure of a company. Also I don't think bringing employee salaries is valid considering on of the main objections to the use of Ai is entire workforces are let go because of Ai. It feels like your saying 'they were just doing their job ', they had no other choice. It's an oxymoron.

However if your making excuses for shitty industry behavior & glossing over it with a " money talks and bullshit walks." statement which is akin to saying " the proof is in the pudding " well the proof might be the overwhelming negative consumer reaction to generating games using Ai.

As a side note your statement implies that only those with money or power have valid opinions. You probably think that, but we have seen from some recent news articles that a the collective voice is starting to slowly resonate back to developers that in general gamers don't want game studio's pumping out generic Ai slop.

In the end you may be right about the financial incentive to make cheap Ai slop games but we have the option to state our concerns using our wallets and our voice to explain why.

This is why GOL is a valuable news source, because it alerts us to which companies are trying to go this route and decide how much this means to you as a consumer.

*edit Some people don't care about the use of Ai in game and that's fine too.

Last edited by Lofty on 15 Jan 2026 at 12:49 pm UTC