Support us on Patreon
PayPalAI continues to be everywhere, and now it's appearing on the GOG store too most recently a big banner for their New Year Sale. In related news: GOG recently launched the GOG Patrons program to support them directly to revive classic games, and then they were acquired by one of the original co-founders.
More recent related news is that they're even looking to bring GOG Galaxy to Linux (finally!) with a new job opening - that link is quite relevant here now too since it notes one of the responsibilities is to "Actively use and promote AI-assisted development tools", and so this news could further derail a lot of good-will for GOG from customers to game developers.
A post on Reddit I spotted pointed out there seemed to be some AI generation on the GOG store page, and when you look at it properly - there's a lot of issues with it. Like how the console is just melting. Also a bit of an odd choice anyway, since they're a PC store - why feature a clearly Nintendo-styled old console? Here's the image currently in question:
One of the GOG team "KosmicznaPluskwa" ended up replying on the official GOG forum, with quite a wall of text styled ramble noting they're not a company spokesperson but they're replying on this "because I personally want to", and just before the rant they did confirm clearly "OK, so to clear the air - current sale banner is fully AI. Not my work. This is all I can say on this". As for their ramble, they clearly feel pretty strongly on this, so perhaps GOG are going to see some internal pushback on this.
I'll copy the end of their little ramble because it felt important:
Maybe it doesn't matter some store put out sloppy work on promo banner - in the end everyone is just there to buy the product - but I know I enjoy seeing cool new artworks out there, when I'm out to buy new products as well. When I buy a new cool figure I like to keep the box around if it's pretty - this is kind of the same, but on digital level. More cool art to see on top of buying art (video games in our case here) is always more cool art in the world and this is what I'm happy to have. So with everyone also feeling strongly in this thread - I'm with you. And continue speaking up - in the face of future we don't like to see, complacency is not the way.
Regardless of any thoughts on it one thing remains clear - the more AI generation is used for the little things "it's just this, it's just that!" - the more it will be accepted, and the more it will replace actual people. We'll see less actual art, less real intentional character in what we see - and more slop with melting consoles.
Not the best look for GOG. When you're a smaller store, one that has clearly struggled in the past, this kind of cost-cutting by replacing artists and marketing people with AI generation is probably not going to go over too well with the wider gaming community.
GOG have been contacted for a statement, I will update if they reply.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
See more from me
You can also find comments for this article on social media: 
Quoting: KimyrielleMy feelings on that are clear: As long as people find it acceptable to use AI for coding (and they seem to), it must be okay to use it for everything else, too.The biggest difference with coding is that AI is rarely used to generate the end product. It's used for snippets or a starting point and then people iterate on it.
The artist equivalent would be using AI to generate a sketch and then drawing over it until happy with the result.
I personally think that's an acceptable use, but also that the result is usually of worse quality.
Quoting: KimyrielleMy feelings on that are clear: As long as people find it acceptable to use AI for coding (and they seem to), it must be okay to use it for everything else, too.An equivalent number of people don't find it acceptable to use AI for coding as find it unacceptable to use AI for image generation. There's already been a lot of ink spilled on how AI coding causes problems, especially long-term.
AI codebases tend to have maintainers who don't know how the code works and cannot write updates, especially since the LLM is less competent at understanding the program's source as a whole as it grows more complex and especially outgrows its context window. Using it for documentation scraping tends to generate hallucinated entries, and the machine has a 50/50 chance of arguing with you that it's right if you decide to correct it. Studies show that AI chat coders believe they're working faster, but in reality are working slower - it's not even useful as a productivity tool.
On the ethical side, use of AI generated snippets has caused concerns over users accidentally violating the GPL by using regurgitated-but-correct code without properly licensing its source. When GitHub changed their TOS to grant a permanent license to all uploaded code for AI training, it experienced a mass exodus of programmers who didn't want their work being used as free unpaid training data for corporations who were subscribing to Microsoft.
So I don't disagree with your statement, but I do disagree with how you've framed the situation.
Look, GOG is Good Old Games. They're the store that's all about nostalgia for things like the games of yesteryear and your ability to own them like you did back then. All about reaction against new impositions of tech-bro-nology. Doing this breaks their theme and their customers' expectations of what GOG is suposed to be. If there is one company whose customers are going to react badly against AI, it is GOG. What are they thinking?
As for the art: at this point with complaints about AI slop everywhere, I care less and less about that. Stress and anger does no good to me.
It's not cool that they use it in that way, sure, it's hard to agree that it's a good thing, but I'm not going to either condemn or praise them for that anymore.
Cloversheen 59 minutes ago
Quoting: Cley_FayeIf someone felt they needed an image to describe their sale, they should have put some effort into it. Just look at how Steam handled this. People are still attached to a random sales mascot character way after it ended.Background art for Autumn Sale 2024 is still masterful.
I am totally invested in this girl and her cat just out there delivering video games by scooter. What will they be up to next? Where will they go? 😃
But honestly, I barely ever look at those banners, so I guess I can at least understand why they'd use AI art there of all places.
Put something there? Yes.
Spend actual money on real people for something practically no-one will even look at? No.
But then... why have any art there in the first place? Just have text. Or stock art.
Geamandura 11 minutes ago
How to setup OpenMW for modern Morrowind on Linux / SteamOS and Steam Deck
How to install Hollow Knight: Silksong mods on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck