Summary
Treyarch, one of the developers behind theCall of Dutygames, is drawing some criticism online after a job posting on its careers page possibly hinted at the studio moving towards using AI-generated art in its games. While the job posting does not specifically state that the artist is being sought out for work in theCall of Dutyfranchise,Treyarchhas been exclusively developing games from that franchise for more than 15 years.
The developer released its first game,Olympic Hockey ‘98, for the N64, and it had its first shot atCall of Dutyin 2005 withCall of Duty 2: Big Red One. Following the release ofCall of Duty: World at Warin late 2008,Treyarch has focused exclusively onCall of Duty, having worked on ten games in the franchise between 2010 and 2023, including every title in theCall of Duty: Black Opsseries.
As directly stated in the job posting, which was uncovered on Twitter by CharlieIntel, “Treyarch is looking for a talented 2D Artist/Animator to join our in-house team to deliver a large variety of dynamic content types for our games. A successful candidate will be an Artist who is skilled in digital illustration, motion design, and using generative AI tools.” Under a heading titled “What you’ll do…,” the job posting fromtheCall of Dutydevelopergoes on to say that the person in the job will “polish” art that is created by both human artists and generative AI tools. It also states that the artist should be experienced in Stable Diffusion, Vizcom, Dall-E, or another similarAI-generated artprogram, as well as having skill and talent for creating digital art by regular human means.
The Fight Over AI Art Continues
The battle against AI art in the entertainment industry has been a long-drawn-out one, and it may be even more prevalent in video games than in other forms of media. In March, areport from Unity revealed many games studios use AI— 62 percent, to be more precise — although a lot of that AI-generated art doesn’t make it to the final product in its initial form, with many responding studios reporting that they use the computer-generated artwork for things like prototypes and concepts rather than a finished product.
With that in mind, the implied future use of AI-generated art contained in this job listing shouldn’t be surprising, but it’s still upsetting to members of the gaming community who don’t want creative and skilled human artists to be replaced by computer programs. That said, with the increased time it takes development teams to complete work on games as technology advances, it seems inevitable that the slide into moregames using AI-generated artis likely to continue.
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)
WHERE TO PLAY
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