RuneScape maker Jagex has insisted it should by no means use generative AI to make content material gamers really see in-game, in one of many hardest stances on AI but seen from a online game developer.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Jagex SVP of product, James Dobrowski, stated that the UK firm is “open” to utilizing genAI for improvement processes, comparable to “tooling effectivity.” However he promised Jagex won’t ever use genAI to “drive creativity.”
“We have got a fairly laborious line stance with the staff, which is a dedication that no generative AI will ever be current in any asset {that a} participant can contact, hear or really feel,” Dobrowski stated. “There shall be no generative AI within the recreation that they expertise.”
That guidelines out the likes of AI-generated artwork, which we’ve seen in video games comparable to Name of Responsibility, AI-generated voices, which we’ve seen in Arc Raiders, and AI-generated textual content / dialogue, which, once more, we’ve seen pop up in plenty of video games.
“The place we’re open to using AI is in issues like tooling effectivity,” Dobrowski continued, “how will we make the way in which we work extra environment friendly as a way to make our employees’s lives simpler and permit us to provide higher content material. However we don’t wish to be utilizing AI to drive creativity.” Jagex is even talking with its exterior companions to ensure no genAI is being utilized in “inappropriate methods in any of their work that may filter by way of to the tip recreation.”
Using generative AI in recreation improvement is likely one of the hottest subjects within the trade, and it has sparked plenty of controversies. Following the reveal of Divinity on the 2025 The Sport Awards, Swen Vincke, boss of developer Larian, met with a backlash after he stated the studio was utilizing genAI in numerous capacities. Larian ended up having to deal with AI issues in a reddit AMA during which the studio confirmed a U-turn on some facets of its use.
Jagex’s “laborious line stance” is in distinction to the method of some online game firms which have gone all-in on the tech. The CEO of Genvid — the corporate behind choose-your-own-adventure interactive sequence Silent Hill Ascension — has claimed “shoppers typically don’t care” about generative AI, and acknowledged that: “Gen Z loves AI slop.” EA CEO Andrew Wilson, in the meantime, has stated AI is “the very core of our enterprise,” and Sq. Enix not too long ago carried out mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it wanted to be “aggressive in making use of AI.” Lifeless Area creator Glen Schofield additionally not too long ago detailed his plans to “repair” the trade partly through using generative AI in recreation improvement, and former God of Warfare dev Meghan Morgan Juinio stated: “… if we don’t embrace [AI], I believe we’re promoting ourselves brief.”
Outdoors of video video games, some leisure firms are banning using genAI altogether. For instance, Video games Workshop not too long ago banned using generative AI for the manufacturing of its designs and content material, a choice many Warhammer followers welcomed.
As for RuneScape, it was within the information not too long ago after a UK court docket dominated stealing RuneScape Gold was prison theft in a case that might have wider repercussions for the online game trade.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].