cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/gaming/t/354777
Twitter thread in the link
Henry Schrader:So, to anyone who doesn’t know, Hi-Rez Studios, the people behind Paladins and Smite, have stated that they will be using AI to clone voices and refused to add in any words to contracts that would protect actors from it. More info in the thread. Please share to other VAs.
This is what happens when everything on the planet is run by suits who are incapable of seeing anything but the bottom line. Exploit the creatives until they can be replaced by shitty robots that don’t do the job half as well but are cheaper to use.
Our dumb cyberpunk future is now.
This is exactly what all the AI-evangelists gloss over. It’s not about preserving the horse and carriage post-cars, it’s about our inability to vote with our dollar to avoid the inevitable rise of cheaply made media, products, services, etc. that lack any and all human element. This is about the predatory nature of having a society that prioritizes “the bottom line” over all other considerations. AI/LLM’s are a terrible thing to introduce to our world without some considerations and guardrails.
It sucks that I can’t boycott their garbage anymore than I already do.
Not sure I’d really consider it boycotting if their product is garbage anyways
Torrent and share their games to affect their bottom line.
Torrenting their free-to-play games?
They are online only games and free. So there’s no piracy you can really pull.
So sad these guys own the Tribes IP
Wow! Another Tribes-series player in the wild.
I don’t know who’s idea it was to put out the update that overhauled the classes and game modes in Tribes:Ascend (Out of the Blue, 1.3, 2015)… I had lost the niches that I loved with my specific class and it felt like the game I was playing was different compared to the one prior to that patch.
I was a bad shot then (I was but I still am, too), but god damn if I couldn’t rack up those points with my turret placement.
I really enjoyed tribes ascend for a little bit. But nothing will ever compare to tribes 1 and 2.
Shazbot!
Never forget the guys who founded hi rez come from ncr a cash register company. They believe in money first.
I loved tribes and they killed it for smite. I actually loved smite a ton and played it a lot.
They already refuse to fix their EAC so that the game can run on Linux so I can’t not play their game any more than I already do. I played Paladins briefly when Overwatch was having its China drama and enjoyed it, but I’m done booting Windows to play games.
Their game runs just fine on Linux. Been playing it there for months now.
Paladins doesn’t, the anti-cheat kicks you out if you play anything other than the tutorial.
ah man. I kind of liked paladin’s hussle as the overwatch lunch-stealers. Now who am I supposed to root for? TF2 again? Is that game even still alive?
Now who am I supposed to root for? TF2 again? Is that game even still alive?
Yes; Yes.
Ugh. I used to love what Hi-Rez put out. Global Agenda was probably my favorite game by them. From my home state as well. They’ve always made terrible business decisions though. This, of course, is no exception
I will happily continue to not pay for games that do this and I won’t be missing out on anything.
This is on par with restaurants that microwave garbage food. They’re phoning it in to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the product. That tells me you don’t want to make games people enjoy, you want to make games that do nothing but maximize profit. I ain’t here for that shit. I’m willing to pay money for companies that respect art and trades, not ones that worship capitalism and exist to appease assholes in suits.
Fuck Hi-Rez for making a really good Tribes game and then abandoning it for Smite. I sure hope they merely licensed the name and don’t hold rights to the entire IP, cuz I want a good, modern Tribes game so bad.
Fuck them even more for this.
It will be interesting to see how these kind of things develop over the next few years. Of course, it’s very enticing for developers to use AI voices, as they can probably save massive amounts of money through it. Will the voice actors have any options to stop this?
Unionizing. Voice actors’ union can say no work will be done with studios using ai voices. Similarly to what writers guild is doing towards Hollywood.
Collective pressure and bargaining works.
Will it work 100%? Nope. But it will work well enough.
I definitely think some sort of residuals or compensation for reusing their voice AI should happen if they are profiting off of it.
That being said, I see a world in the very near future where voice actors don’t even act out their lines and just say a number of things for recording to train an AI voiced version of themselves. Then directors/creators and just manipulate and use it as they please to create their product.
Some mods in games are getting this already, voiced Morrowind and the like, and I definitely seeing it as a boon. Voice acting has always been a weak point when it came to stuff like that as you can write/script/design the best you can but can lack decent/any voice acting.
Interested to see how things play out.
Yep, even if they don’t clone an existing VA, they’ll be able to find others willing to sell their voice for AI, or just have an AI generate a voice from a mixture of different people. The existing VAs will then never be hired.
Accurate and well executed computer voice is a goal of too many technologies to remain unsolved for long. It sucks for the VAs, but there’s no way to go back.
Developers can still make the choice to hire and work with voice actors in the traditional way, though. Especially if they care about performance. AI voice generating has gotten impressive but it still cant replace good acting.
So not every company will care about this if it means not having to pay, but Im sure some deva will still choose actors. (At least I hope so.)
