Welcome to Maple to Maple, uniting players around the
world, a 30 minute exploration of TJ and Gareth's four-game
experiences from across both sides of the Atlantic.
Each episode they share their thoughts and opinions on the
world of four games, including their favorite themes, games,
hot topics, and much, much more. Hello guys, and welcome to
Episode 97, A Board Game Revolution.
Today we're going to talk about AI in art and the ethics behind
it as it affects the board game community.
And as always, I am PJ. And I'm Gareth.
We are back together. Can you believe it?
This is great. Honestly, I didn't have to cope
last week without without you to an intro itself was a pressure
that you know that I I haven't got to this week, but we have
got a guest with us. We do.
This week we've got Chris. Chris, how are you?
I'm good. So you chose this topic for us
to talk about? I suggested it.
You agreed to it. And I think it yeah, I mean,
it's something really interesting because I, we were
having a preamble before the show and we're talking about AI
and I use it at work and we're trying to work out those
boundaries of when it's right and wrong.
So I think as we talked through this episode, we'll get some
good discussion around, you know, the, you say that AI and
Chris, what's your background? What's your background in terms
of in terms of how this AI in the board game industry might
affect you or could affect your just AI in general effects
you're, I think you're an artist.
Yeah, So I have worked in the film industry, spent over 10
years doing graphic design, social media, web design, web
management and so a lot of what the public sees, AI, generative
content has a direct effect on what I've spent 15 years doing.
Have you seen a shift how, how recently is AI started to be a
significant shift in terms of maybe art production?
Is it since like ChatGPT and Jenna has appeared or have you
seen things coming before then? That's a tough question.
Graphic design hasn't been my main thing for about 3 years
now. OK, So I haven't been as head
down in that world, but I think we've seen a lot of stuff
pervading popular culture these days.
I mean, it's hard to go a day without seeing somebody share an
AI thing on Facebook. And a lot of people think it's
real, right? And they're sharing it probably
from an honest point of view. But I sit there looking at it
and saying your whole point is missed on me because of what I
would call the fake artwork of their post.
Yeah, I guess you're, I guess there's a kind of AI aware kind
of if you know, you kind of know what signals to look for the
either tone of the script or the OR the style of the artwork,
which is, you know, I think we're going to talk about some
of the games that have got AI in them.
Absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
And Chris, and you are a gamer as well, so.
Correct. What's your favorite game?
Oh, that's an unfair question, Gareth, that.
Is an unfair question. What is that?
Just keeps keeps the ball game theme going and we're going to
go rock into. Well, I did the Pub Me Ball
ranking back at the beginning of the year, so I'll just go with
that. The number one game for me at
the time was Scholars of the South Tigris.
Oh good. Choice.
That is a meteor fair as well. Yeah, I love that.
Game little Shem Phillips there for you.
Wow. Yeah.
Right, PJ, where we going? Where do you want to start on
this episode then? So I, I thought we'd start with
just a little bit of a background on Chris, just to
introduce you to our listeners so they know where you're coming
from. Tell us about, you know, how'd
you get into the modern gaming as a hobby?
And then you can extrapolate as an artist as well, however you
want to tackle it. Well as far as gaming goes, I
grew up playing games anytime our family was together we were
playing Domino's cards, all sorts of games.
I used to play sorry with my aunt all the time when I was a
kid. And so games have always been a
part of my life and the same for my wife.
So when we started hanging out we would play gin while we sat
and ate lunch or ate dinner. We would play hand and foot
canasto anytime we had friends over.
And so it was an easy jump into the hobby when one of my best
friends came over one day and was like, hey, I've got this
game, I want you to play. And we played it, had a good
time with it. And shortly thereafter, the
friend that got him into the hobby, they came over to my
house, brought Terraforming Mars.
And this is like the second or third game that I played in the
hobby. I didn't understand what was
happening for three hours, but as soon as it was over, I knew I
needed more. Yeah, I need more.
And that was end of 2016, around Christmas time.
And it's just grown from there, right?
Yeah, absolutely. You had mentioned that you you
were an artist. I think you said in our pre
conversation that you were a graphic designer.
Have you done any work in the game community?
Is there any artwork in games that we wouldn't see or know
about? I wish.
OK. I've tried.
When I was transitioning out of my job in New Orleans, I'd
applied for several board game company opportunities, and even
since then I've applied for some as well.
But you know, it's all about who you know, probably and.
Yeah. I have some friends in the
industry but none in that regard that have panned out for a job.
And is it is, is it permanent roles or is it a lot of
freelance? I've no it depends.
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of job postings.
Hey, we've got this project we need help on.
But then there's a lot of companies that one of the things
that I've applied for several positions is a marketing graph
designer and not so much working on the games themselves, but
working on promoting the games and sell sheets and convention
graphics and promotional materials for the company and
their games. So maybe one day.
I did help open a game store here in Oklahoma a couple years
ago and was a part of that for about a year and a half and have
since moved on to do some other things.
So I, I thought that was a great, let's just jump into AI,
right? So you, you're an artist, you're
trying to get into the industry. How do you see AI changing,
evolving the industry from an artist's standpoint?
That's a heavy question. Yeah.
I brought it on myself. So I think there's several
things and there's several layers to that question.
From an art standpoint, and this may be controversial for some
people and spoiler alert, I have a very harsh opinion against AI
artwork. I think it cheapens the games.
I think it doesn't put out as good of a product as a human
arted game because there's no emotion and life experience and
passion behind it. So that's you know, that's one
layer I think it cheapens it. I think it also brings up a huge
ethical dilemma where typically these generated images are
compiling pieces of art from all over the Internet.
And. It's taking pieces of human
produced artwork and compiling them into something different.
And in doing that, the original artists receive no credit or
compensation, and there's questions about breaking
copyright laws because of original artwork.
And so I think that brings up the big ethical thing inside of.
Artwork. And that I think for me too, and
we'll get into this more later probably is it's more than just
board gaming. I mean AI is changing our world
right now. And the question is in good ways
or bad ways? It's probably both I think.
That's. Very little, I think.
I mean, we, we, we were chatting around whether we use this
outside of, you know, ball gaming and we use AIA lot where
I work usually for either trying to do some deep analytics and
things that we haven't got the capability for, but always with
a word of caution about whether where we're reading the data
from. So we try to not use external
sources and you can build it off our own data set, knowing where
that's come from back to the ethics, but also places where we
haven't got maybe the skill set or the manpower.
So we've built quite a few models, but it's always to try
and either improve the workflow, but doesn't often end up in
front of a customer. So it's that it's that kind of
learning element, element to it. When I get close to the board
games or to Chris's point about the artwork.
I, I do, you can tell. I mean, I don't know whether
it's obvious, but you know, we, I tried to make it a logo for
Bourgain Meeple using Dali, but all of it just doesn't.
It's got a look to it that just, it just, you just know, it's not
that human touch, which I bet gets it, that artistic integrity
that Chris was mentioning. It's not coming from its own
inspirational area. It's coming from thousands, well
millions, probably billions. I don't mean images.
There are that it's been that it's been trained on, but
there's always that look. And even if you say like I want
an artist, a futuristic look or I want a medieval, they all have
that same, I can't describe it kind of look to it.
It's like this filter that covers.
Yeah, yeah. And it just looks.
Fake. Yeah, just looks fake.
And, you know, I thinking earlier about the games that we
have, and I know that paths, Paths of civilisation had a lot
of debate. I think it was Essen released
last year. I think it was last year, yeah.
Last. Yeah, where where the artwork is
I think in the in the majority is AI LED.
But Chris, I think you were saying that it it has had some
touching up or some artist artistic overlays to it, but.
SO mentions it in the rule book and if I can just read it.
Real. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Because it brings up a good
question, I think it said image banks, photographs, artificial
intelligence generations or works from the public domain may
have been used as working elements in the design or
development of certain graphical and textual aspects of the game.
So it's not just artwork there. The elements of this game are
not the result of a simple request to an artificial
intelligence. Instead, they are the product of
an artistic direction process that includes compositing,
editing and careful retouching by real humans with real bits of
neurons. Yeah, I mean, it's so loose,
isn't it? It's really vague.
But obviously they know it's an issue because they're saying at
the end, real humans with real neurons, you know, they went a
little dramatic with it. A little bit.
Yeah, so I think but. That brings up a Gray area.
It's it is really grey because how much of that card is is it
5% AI or is it 95% AI? How much did you pay for the
card? Did you pay?
I don't know what a card's artwork.
Let's make it up. It's £100 a card, but but how
much that money actually went to the artists or, or did they save
the money? Now I, I think as a as a not an
artist and if I was the beginning of that sentence, it
said in the development, I think at that point, if I had to
design A game and needed some ideas, I would I would use AI to
help give me some creativity, but then you'd pass on to an
artist for real. That said, this is kind of the
ideas I have just to get me moving more than me and
scribbling something on a bit of paper, which I can assure you
would be terrible. But it is that it is that fine?
It's not a fine line. There is a line and it becomes a
replacement for the artist versus supporting a process to
try and get to an end game end result.
I think that's the key is support versus replacement,
right? I think, I think what I picked
up on when you were reading that, couple things I noticed is
so I talked about public domain, which got me to thinking about
fair use and copyright law, which in my line of work is
really prevalent and important in records management and
archiving. So I was also thinking about Dan
Halligan from Obsession, right. Garrett, if you remember when he
was on, he talked about how he used public domain images and
that helped direct the theme of that game.
And here's how we insert obsession into.
AI 18th century ball gaming. Right, but he, he used public
domain images for his for a lot of his artwork, which you know,
and I have no problem with that. Of course, I think he's he's
putting together the overall work and I think that's where we
get into the does AI support or does it replace right.
I think that's. That's quite a good experiment
to go then take some of those cards and see if you said to
create me an 18th century de de de de picture of AI don't know
aristocrat, what would it look like and you and you just know.
And then compare it. Compare it to, I guess, original
artwork or drawings through time.
So it's interesting, there's a podcast that I've listened to a
few times called Daily Creative. Nothing to do with board games,
but on a recent episode he had Andy Crouch on and he talked
about the difference between tools and devices.
And I think his thoughts there apply pretty much across the
board when you consider AI, because they're talking about
technological advancements and if they're helping or hindering
us as a society. So Andy said devices are meant
to replace human effort and skill, substituting something
humans used to do. So devices become a substitute
for human work, whereas tools are meant to be implements in
people's hands that require practice, skill, and effort.
And I think as we talk about this, and we've already kind of
hinted at it, right? Is it, is it a tool that we can
use to enhance or help in some way?
But I think the danger of it is, is it's already becoming a
device, right, that is replacing human work.
Right. And that's, that's the danger
and that's why it's such a big important topic.
And not everybody thinks that. I see on some of the board game
geek threads for Path of Civilization.
And another big one that really started the conversation in the
board gaming world was the more Terraforming Mars Kickstarter
last fall. And there are people that don't
care and they say, what does it matter to me?
I just want my game and I want to have fun.
But it does matter because it is becoming such a big deal in so
many facets of our world. What?
What happened? What happened on tariff on Mars?
I clearly missed the entire. So right before they launched
their Kickstarter for I think it was more Tariff on Mars, which
was just a bunch of promo content, extra maps that had
previously been fan made. Kickstarter instituted a policy
that creators have to be upfront with the use of AI in their
project. And so they had to be honest
about it. And it was really the first time
that I was made aware of this being a thing in the board game
world. And it the conversation
exploded. They had prominent other
publishers going to social media.
Patrick Leader from Leader Games called them out like really
harshly and said when they used clipart, which Terry from Mars
art works always been terrible and that was some people's
argument as AI art is an improvement for that game.
But Patrick Leader said when they used clipart in previous
versions, I turned up my nose and just played the game.
I'm astounded that they found a way to make the situation worse,
but here we are. Right.
And then he talked about how the game industry is based on the
efforts of creative and talented folks, and the system is built
to make us as cheap as possible. Many designers accept the risk
by only getting paid if their game is signed further
published. Sorry.
Further pushing artists out of the system further trivializes
the artistic expression of the form by supporting it.
You're just going to continue seeing this race to the bottom.
And there was another publisher that called it out and said they
were infuriated and disappointed over it.
And they said there's no ethical use of AI art for profit.
And I think that's where the kicker comes in.
Yeah, I think that I think that tools and device and then is it
for profit and and the usage those two I do the piece around
the is it a tool or is it a device to improve things and
inside your point about making money from it.
Because you look at that Terraform Mars Kickstarter, they
made over 2.2 million X dollars and almost 20,000 backers.
Now again, that game has not historically had great art and
they used well clipart. That was my brain stopped and
they've used clipart and stock images and it's never been good.
But they've taken a step further to bring up a question of
ethical. So so is it that they replaced
the clip art and the stock art with AI art?
Is that is that the was that the swing they did?
From to my knowledge, yeah. Yeah, OK.
I I was going to back the Kickstarter until I saw that
because like I mentioned, Terraform Mars is one of my
first games. I've bought everything for it
and it still has a place on my shelf today.
But at that point, I said I'm not going to support this
Kickstarter because I have such a staunch stance against AI art
and like, like I said, for profit.
That's the thing. Because how many designers out
there using it for prototyping and play testing?
Because if you, I know P JS a huge play tester, sometimes it's
hard to get into the game because it's just white pieces
of paper and you know, so if you can take a little bit of time to
add a touch to your prototype, it might get noticed more, you
might get better feedback. But are you going to take that
and use it to make the money off of with the final product?
PJC back that play testing point.
Have you have you had any play testing where they've used AR
work? And if they if you haven't,
would you want them to declare that or a little sign on the
table when you were testing? So not to my knowledge, like
I've always made the assumption, but now AI is something I have
to incorporate into my mindset to ask when I get a print and
play, you know, prototype. So I don't know.
No one has ever been upfront and said, hey, this is AI art.
To your second question, would I want them to let me know?
I think. Yes.
And for the sole reason of while I have no answers to any of the
questions we've been talking about, I say yes because I
believe at my core, open debate. And that's what I love about
this. I think that this is an
important topic for us to talk about and do it in an
intelligent and calm way so that we can breed some form of
resolution and accord and back to our, you know, the purpose of
this podcast uniting players around the world.
And I think AI touches all of us.
And that seems to be the thesis of this episode.
AI effects all of us, not just in gaming, but in everything
else. And I think at the core is the
tools versus the device, right? So if you're using it as a tool
for a prototype, yeah, I would probably do the same.
As a terrible artist myself, I would probably go ahead and say,
hey, you know what, I'm going to use AI art for my prototype, but
I would be upfront with my play testers and, and not let it
become a device because, you know, I think that's important.
Because then then in the rule book, either you would just say
AI was used to inspire or help, or you don't, or you don't
mention it at all because actually it, it has no impact on
the on the artists who actually did the artwork.
Great. Because a brief if you like some
scope to what was what kind of is in your head, but that's it.
Because any artwork comes from some sort of inspiration.
What I was just recently had designed a logo for the new
venture that we're doing. I looked at a ton of logo
designs in that industry to see what direction I wanted to go
and define inspiration. You.
Know so that's it's I don't know that looking at it for
inspiration is near as much of A Gray area as taking it to print.
Right, that's where. And I, I don't know, it's also
astounding to me because there's a Polygon article article that
interviewed the president of Indie Game Studios, which is one
of the kind of Co publishers of Terraforming Mars.
One of his answers to the questions just blew me away.
He said using this as an automation tool to help certain
aspects, it's certainly going to hurt people like there are many.
Yeah. This has negative impacts and
implications for the future of not just the board gaming
industry, he said. This is where we're at.
It's the growing pain stage. I don't think this is going to
go back in the bag. It's too powerful a technology.
It's used in too many places already, and he mentions a few.
So there's high end luxury watch companies that are admitting to
using this for their copywriting in their ads and also generating
ideas for watches. There's a couple of studios out
there on the TV side of things that are using AI as part of
their development, and even news outlets that are using it to
write their news stories. So I mean, we're talking what's
the impact of careers, right? Things people studied for and
have degrees in and years of experience.
But we can just put it in a computer system and say go find
another job. Yeah.
That's that's where it's a problem.
And then even the the Frick's games, which is the other kind
of company behind the doors, the CEO Enoch said.
I see no way to turn back time. Illustrators lose jobs for every
new tool that is developed. Right.
Like it's, it's, it's a little bit, it's a little disingenuous
because it's not absolutely true, but it is partially true.
We see a lot of that. We see a lot of that in
argumentation. But they're just blatant and
yeah, this is the effects and we're just going to do it.
I recently heard someone talking about AI on an NPR interview.
Is that AI is taken away. They're doing our art and
creativity so that I can do my job.
We want AI to do our jobs so that we're free to be artistic
and creative. And it's having the opposite
effect. Do you know what what what do
they mean by taking? Was it the grip?
I don't quite get how an artist can say Is it that they can
churn out more work? What was there any what was I
try to work out how you know what they saw as the the awesome
moment that it's it's doing their work for them, because I
guess she's not I guess she's not doing any work.
If you're just turning a computer to here's a here's a
problem to here's here's here's make me some art.
Yeah, I don't know. I do.
So I do think this. So if Gareth, if you and I were
to get together and Co design a board game and we got this great
idea, I think we would, I think you and I would agree.
We'd probably use AI because neither one of us are artists to
to get to get the things flowing and then say we know Chris.
Chris is an artist. He's a graphic designer.
I think after we've got it ready for development, I would then go
to Chris and be like, here's our project, but scrap the art and
design it from scratch. But then you would know what's
in our head because we do not have the physical ability to
artistically express our ideas. So using AI to do that for us,
but then getting in a human artist to do the work, I think
is maintaining. Go ahead.
No, yeah, sorry, I didn't interrupt.
I think, I think I wouldn't want to give Chris the artwork so
that I guess there's unconscious bias.
Sure. Because we, we've grown, we've,
we've maybe developed that game for 18 months, you know, and,
and even though we know it's AI, it might have become something
that we've had good feedback on. We've had good times.
It probably will not even give the artists that brief because I
don't know. But you know, because you become
attached to things even though you know it's it's wrong.
What do you think, Chris? What do you think?
If we put, if we were to put you in that hypothetical situation,
would you rather our AI art that we were working with or would
you rather not? I mean, you would definitely as
an artist need some sort of brief, even just the prompt you
gave for the. Director you used.
Right. Medieval game set in a castle.
How did you know? Catapults firing at your, you
know, Archer turrets. Whatever, right?
Yeah. You know you would need some
sort of direction. Of course.
Honestly, there may be times that I would want to see what
you've been looking at. Right.
You know, there's been so many times working on projects where
I've looked up inspiration and I've been like, that's it,
that's the direction I want to go.
That's the feel, the emotion. And I get into it and it just
doesn't work. And I've got to start off from
scratch and go a completely different direction.
That's what I ended up doing with the logo for our new
business, Caitlin. And I mocked some stuff up and I
said, this is what we're doing. I got into it.
It looked terrible and I didn't like it at all.
And so I kind of scrapped it and restarted, and where we ended
turned out great and I'm really proud of it.
You know, I think I take back, I take it back, Gareth, you're
absolutely right. When I published my first book,
I had a friend of mine designed the book cover and I had an
idea, a distinct idea in my head, and I described it to him.
He's like, OK, so he's like, let's try and put it together.
And it looked terrible when I when I gave him the freedom,
when I gave the artist the freedom.
It's a it's amazing. I love it.
It's gorgeous. I wouldn't do it again.
So if you're listening, Israel, I'm going to give you a plug.
Thank you. I really enjoyed that.
And I, I've learned, yeah, trust the artist, not not the AI and
I. Can relate to that.
I mean, as as a creative individual and the long time job
that I was in down in New Orleans, one of the guys that
was there that oversaw what I did didn't give me a lot of
freedom and was very critical of a lot of things.
And he moved on to another thing.
And after he left, I felt so free because now the people
supervising me didn't hold his tide of a leash and invited me
into the planning and the dreaming and the whole process.
And it just gave me so much more freedom.
And I feel like I put out some of my best work in there in
those years because I didn't feel as like squelched.
And and I don't think he did it intentionally, right?
That's the hard part in a job like that.
Sometimes non creative people don't understand how to lead
creative people. Well, that's a whole separate
conversation. No, you're right, we don't.
No, no, we don't you. Know we do not give.
Me data. Points don't, but it can still
apply because maybe some of these publishers haven't had
good experience with artists and they said why would I spend the
money dealing with this difficult person?
Not because they're difficult, because you didn't understand
them. So why would I spend all that
money and time when I can just get one person to type a prompt
in and not have to pay for anything?
Yeah, Yep. So a couple of weeks ago I, I
started a test which some people may or may have noticed on my
Instagram channel when I started thinking about this topic of AI
and I, I tested, I think about 7 posts now of just asking it to
help me write a game summary. So that's that thing.
Is it a tool? Is it a device?
How does it, what does it produce that I wouldn't produce
or couldn't reduce? And it's a few, a few edits with
the prompt and ask it to add things in.
It's the more in my style. Like I use emojis.
Show me the pros. Too many cons taking my own
review format as an input and no one no one's caught me out on it
where they haven't noticed over the last seven days.
Anyone would like to feedback to me it'd be it would be welcome
just see if anybody had noticed that it because it's it's not
quite in my style and the reason I tested it is because I hear
more and more about Instagram once in written form more than
just hey, it's a game. It's terrifying Mars.
I love it a few hashtags they're saying you have to put more
content and I haven't got the time in my life to write a lot
of scripts back to you know, outside factors.
It made a blind bit. No, no difference at all.
So my light count, my engagement is pretty much the same kind of
just it was an experiment on two fronts.
A can AI help me reduce content? And B, does it make a difference
to any kind of reach by writing more and mighty, but writing
more engaging content. But it hasn't.
So we'll be going back to to normal, no more production now
you. Need to go read through those
now. Yeah, yeah.
Go have a read your last, your last.
I think it's about 77 posts, about a week and a half.
But if you go back past that, you'll see that generally I
write that much and now there's that much interesting, but but
writing tools and devices, to me, it was a tool to help me get
more content out and I did it. I always edited it and changed
words because it wasn't my language.
But could you, yeah, could you script it?
I did do some experiments that if I was in a YouTube world, I
asked it to write me some creative scripts for like if I
was filming, I'm going to do like a 10 minute run through.
I was quite impressed how it gave me some structure.
Obviously isn't going to replace me doing the video work.
He's still got to be creative. But again, for somebody who's
not done YouTube or thought about, you know, doing a how to
play it, it was quite useful and given me a bit of a framework
that I would have to go and tackle.
So it's got it is a fine balance of to use it to to replace
creativity or to use it to help you do be more creative.
But that yeah, that's my little experiment over the last 10 days
or so. 7 posts, but no one, no one every the people are talking
about it on DMS and not messaging me or no one gives a
blind blind. Well, back to your terrifying
Mars 20,000 people. Was it?
Just got on with it. So yeah, have a read and please
feedback on Instagram if you've got thoughts on that.
Yeah. Yeah, these are real concerns,
especially for us 'cause as we're reaching episode 100, we
are discussing moving to YouTube or video recording.
You know, we, we haven't landed on anything yet, although time's
running short, but right. And then we've got this logo
we've got to rethink because the whole meeple and the copywriter
trademark with Carcassonne and all.
So it's like all of these things are relevant to our podcast.
And yet, what do we do and what do we land on?
And how do we do it ethically and responsibly?
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change logo because of that.
We need. We need.
Just a refresh anyway. Yeah, Anywhere else.
Interesting too. I was just thinking while you
were talking about that, Gareth, I think art and board games in
the past eight years is one of the reasons the hobby has
exploded like it has. I was kind of on the beginning
wave of it just becoming this massive worldwide thing.
And I think a large part of it is some of the artwork, you
know, some of these games and these artists are just putting
out beautiful pieces that just enhance your game.
I think 15 years ago, nobody would have cared because you had
games like Puerto Rico, Castles of Burgundy, you know, all the
old dry Euro games that they didn't care about the art, and
it could look terrible and people still played them.
But people Care now. And that's why right now it's as
big of a deal as it is. Yeah.
We had some friends over last week who who are relatively new
to Instagram and I guess I was like 12 years.
I think it counts 13 years this year.
And in that time, yeah, that that difference the the
popularity, as you say, Christie, difference in the
artwork and the impact that has on games.
As for the first things, I guess you visually see when you turn
on the Kickstarter pages is the art.
But yeah, don't yeah, it's Kickstarter, Jeff.
It's got a got a marker for again, anything that says it's
been generated by AI. There's no, they haven't gone
down an Ave. yet of highlighting an AI driven project.
I've noticed on Instagram there's now a little tag, if
your art is using AI, you're supposed to switch on.
Yeah, I sat there thinking, well, do I turn that, turn that
marker on for my written content?
And I, I read all the bits and bobs.
It was for art, the art itself, not for the written word.
Interesting. Which I thought was an
interesting one. It is interesting.
Yeah, I think to your point, Chris, how many, how many of
these older games have been refreshed?
All they did was refresh the art.
Yeah. 7 wonders got, you know, a refresh.
Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico's about to It's I. Think it's a million.
It's a million already in about four, three or three or four
days. In Castle's Burgundy a couple
years ago. I mean, let's talk.
About Catan, how many times it's been the artwork?
It looks so different, like mine is.
Mine is back from 99 and it's atrocious.
You try to put it together with something today and it's like.
You know, yeah, I, I know the box.
You mean. Well, I've kind of got about the
same era, yeah. The 3D version that came out
with a couple years ago, Yeah, right.
It was ridiculous. What about what about designers
about AI? So if I was about to prototype
and I've got I've got, I haven't got art, but if I want to do, I
don't know, balance, checking balance and mechanics, maybe to
letting them if there's a lot of algorithms going through.
Because some designers just use a spreadsheet, don't they to, to
work out the balance? Yeah.
Would you, would you use, is AI OK to use those examples to try
and test different mechanics? I haven't heard of any designers
using AI, but I suspect it's happening.
I think so, but it. Hasn't it will happen, Yeah.
I think it goes back to our conversation about tools versus
devices, right? I think if it's a tool to
supplement the creativity and the the balancing and the
process, then that's acceptable. But once it substitutes, I think
AI becomes dangerous when it substitutes human agency.
Oh, that was good, right? Yeah, I think that's when AI is
a threat and and take threat, however you mean that.
But it it, it becomes a cautionary tale.
Yeah. Well, I mean, as some of this
playtest said, I know you play such a ton of prototype games.
Could it help? Sure, sure.
But it's never going to replace someone sitting at your table
right? Playing the game and interacting
with it physically. Right.
AI can't replace that, just like in artwork, it can't replace the
passion, the life and experience and emotion that an artist can
put into a piece of art. Absolutely.
Yeah. No, I completely agree.
You can't. You can't not get human play
testers when you're in the process of developing a board
game. AI can't play test the game for
you and just be like it's balanced.
Go ahead and publish right like. Now the one benefit I could see
though is it's not bringing a bias, right?
That if I'm playing, testing a game with mechanics that I don't
like, I'm already going into it expecting it to be bad, right?
So there may be a benefit there, but it's still not going to
replace the human interaction. You've still got the the bias
within the AI itself anyway. There's a.
Risk. Exactly.
Everything it's learnt was from people who hate card drafting
games. I just thought another one thing
I was thinking about work and about AI localisation of rule
books. That's so that's always a
sticking point. A lot of English produce board
games is that if you want it in another language, there's
somebody else has to another publisher picks you up, right.
But actually, you know, we've been, we've got other, we've got
offices of other countries and talking about how we do some
translation and that did come up.
Not that we've done it, but you know, does that speed up the
localisation because it it understands other languages?
But does it? But does it understand the
colloquialisms? From what I've seen, yes, not
perfect, but better than Google Translate, which is terrible at
picking up the, you know, nuances of the words.
But you know, just thinking about the, you know, that's
always only because I think I've seen two Inkixar updates in the
last 24 hours where localisation is the bit that's slowing them
down, right. But again, that replaces
translators and localisation specialists.
I mean because it's. It's far reaching across our
industries, isn't it, Where where that you know that's a
tool to help translate, but you'd still you still were a
native speaker. You do to review it.
Absolutely. To get it to to make sure that
it's got it right. Because not only colloquialism,
but you have nuance, nuance and language nuance and emotions of
the communicator and the receiver of the communication.
And I think that's really important.
And I don't know that AI can fully, fully substitute that.
Yeah, no, agreed. And it goes back to the profit
question, too. Yeah, yeah.
Are they using it to save money, to make more money?
Because let's be honest, Pat, the civilization, I would love
to talk to them and ask them if you had paid artists to do all
the artwork, are you going to charge more money or are you
putting that game out there at the price right now?
Because I think it's $6570 game because that's the price of that
type of game, that size, that many components, regardless of
your art costs. And so the same thing could be
said for localization and. Yeah, no, great.
Yeah. Anything where you'll try and
take task out of the process. Yeah, I'm just looking at how
much it was. It's basically 70 quid, 70 lbs
over here. That's that's for what is mostly
cards. That's that's reasonably
expensive. Yeah, I don't think that's worth
that. If, if, if it is, if it is
reducing costs, I'd say somebody's got their bottom
line. They've got some nice bit of
gross profit at the back of that.
Yeah, that would be an interesting breakdown to see.
So are we, I think we're at that point.
The question is, Gareth, what does AI have to say about AI?
So I did do a test because I, you know, I asked it to give me
pros and cons of AI in artwork and it's prose was efficient art
creation to help generate concepts and backgrounds,
freeing up time for artists to focus on key pieces, which I
think kind of you mentioned helps do iterative design.
So it helps do variations and then cost efficiency.
But the pro stuff is pretty much where our conversations sat,
which is the loss of artistic integrity, job displacements,
and legal and ethical issues around copyright, originality
concerns. I did ask it for a titled
episode, but they were reason for the average.
So when we go with those, no, it's failed.
But again, you know, it was, it was a very weak prompt.
I asked it, I didn't ask anything more than a sentence,
right? Which I think is where, you
know, sometimes I'm trying to get a bit of knowledge and
Google it takes you place. It doesn't always tell you what
you're trying to understand here.
At least it gives you a bit of a framework, but it's what it is.
Then what it's back to that tools, devices point.
It's brilliant what you do with it and how you use it and
whether you're using it just for back to that frameworking and
maybe helping you do something different or whether you're
taking it as is and yeah, back to Chris's worth making a profit
or, you know, replacing, you know, somebody else's task or
job. Yeah.
Any other? Any any other final points,
Chris? Hey for me where the whole
conversation comes down to the point and it's not just in board
games. Life as a whole is technology.
AI should be a tool to help improve and enhance our lives.
Yep. It shouldn't be something that
is used to replace jobs, to put people out of jobs, to save
money, to make more money, right?
It should be helping us as individuals, as a society, as a
culture, as a world to grow and improve our lives.
It doesn't seem to be trending that way.
It seems to be trending the opposite to where it's putting
people out of jobs or helping companies cut corners and make
more money. And the question I've thought,
and I haven't come to any conclusions on is how can it be
used for the betterment of the world?
I don't know. Let's use it to cure cancer, not
to put artists out of jobs, right?
Like right? Right curing.
Cancer. I don't know what happened, but
yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure they're using AI.
Sure. Have you got a have you got an
AI themed reading the back of the rule book to do?
Or have you just chosen a random game this week?
No, as usual. I've I forgot to tell our
listeners last week, which was terrible because I actually
wrote it down in my script what the last two episodes were.
Yes, I was going to read by now, which I then failed.
So. One was going to be This is no.
But this, this is the problem. This is what happens when Gareth
and I go solo without each other because I messed up for two
weeks and then Gareth was supposed to tell everybody and
do a voice over and he yeah, we need each other.
We can't rely on AI, we have to rely.
So first of all, let's go back two weeks.
River Valley Glass Works was the game that I had read from 2
weeks ago or three weeks ago and two weeks ago when John was on I
read from the game Reef. That's it.
And then you were going to read from Middle Ages but forgot to
do the reading. Yeah, that's OK, People got the
answer. But sure it was it was a good
description. Do you want to do the reading?
I've got? OK.
All right. So I've got one now, Chris.
We'll let you guess on air and I'll tell you after we're done
recording. See how confident my guess is
first? Yeah, they're they're pretty
easy for the most part I think. Anyway, you and your fellow
players take on the role of gardeners seeking to wield your
green thumb to grow a well balanced, mature garden before
the growing season ends. Over the course of the game, you
will be planting seedlings and growing a variety of plants to
fill out your garden. In addition, if you are able to
meet the complex growing condition of your flowers, you
will earn prestige points for your horticultural achievements.
The player who earns the most prestige at the end of the game
will be crowned the Master Gardener.
Was it flowers or was it vegetables?
I believe it was mentioned as flowers and seedlings flowers.
Yeah. Flowers and seedlings.
I thought of a game, but it's vegetables.
Oh, well, there you go. Yeah.
I I don't know. OK, well TuneIn next week and
you will get the answer. OK now you're just you stick.
So I'm staring at y'all just trying to think about it.
It's OK. I'm gonna have to go and think
about that one. Yep.
But as if I know it. Do I know it?
You should. Oh, I think I I have a thought.
You should, yeah. OK.
All right. Right then.
Well, thanks, Chris for joining us this week.
Thanks for having me. Really good conversation.
I hope our listeners enjoyed it. Thanks, PJ.
Good to see you. Absolutely.
If we're going to do some video, we better work out because we've
got 3 episodes again. What?
We're going to do. I know, I know.
I have, I have a coming plan, right.
OK, Thanks listening and we will speak to you all again soon.
Thanks everyone for listening, please subscribe and as always,
we'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas, so make sure to leave
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