#craftopia

I don't usually like to deal with drama or discourse in general leaves a bad but I feel like this needs to be said.

This discourse is stupid, a lot of different points on either side due to several reasons at least in my opinion.

Ive seen many people who were against palworld use claims for stolen designs, mentions of AI art as well as lots of people either acting in defense of game freak/TPC/Nintendo as well as some acting in defense of artistic integrity.

I've seen the people who were for the game act in one singular way while just trying to have fun with it(which i cannot deny, it looks fun as fuck).

This being them claiming that they are just kissing the boots of Nintendo, though i don't think its quite fair to put them in the same category.

Just have fun with the game, no need to engage with the hate if you don't want to(even though i know it's difficult, especially when it's staring you in the face).

For those who are for, I only have a couple things to say.

Companies are not faceless entities, I know that this sounds like basic knowledge but I've noticed that's not something people usually mention.

Not everyone who attacks this game, cares for pokemon. Im gonna go in more depth when i get to them, but i feel like this needs be said.

While there are many good things on the internet, the internet as a whole, especially nowadays, is chaos and pain.

So many different opinions, leading to low self-esteem and rage.

You just want to have fun, you probably don't like pokemon, or if you do, you probably don't like what they've been doing with it.

You've seen the early trailers and had a laugh, found out this year that it came out, sought it out be cause hey, could be a bit of a meme.

But soon you start to actually have fun with it and hope it succeeds, despite some of the designs not being totally original, and you don't care.

But soon, like usual, you find that there are people who dislike the game.

In the real world, it doesn't matter to you, it rolls off you like nothing, because you don't know them, maybe you get into a heated argument with a friend.

But as soon as you hit the internet, you feel as though people are personally attacking something you like, (emotions are hard to convey through text) so you defend.

Not really caring about how it sounds to those you desperately fight against.

But in the end that's just adding fuel to the flame.

(though I can say that this discourse is great publicity for the game, good or bad it still lets people know that it exists.)

So just have fun with it.

(Unless dealing with discourse like this is fun for you idk)

For those who are against,

I am first going to speak to those who seem to want to defend Game Freak/TPC/Nintendo and those who speak for artistic integrity.

Why do any of your thoughts matter when it comes to a company.

as I had stated earlier, people usually associate companies and conglomerates as faceless entities.

They don't see them like systems, heavily broken systems, like if a beehive were born from an unloving tyrannical queen.

The ones at the top exist to fill their pockets while those at the bottom suffer for it.

I bet around half of the people speaking of artistic integrity don't really know the names of the designers of each pokemon(and to those who do, I'm glad, cause then I know you know what you're talking about.)

I feel as though speaking of artistic integrity only works when you're talking about an individual.

Which means, by extension, that a company like Nintendo, or the other two companies that own or work on the ip, those that see only the product and the work.

To them, artistic integrity is dead.

Why else would the shoot down fan works so heavily?

To keep their product close to the chest.

But what about the claims that they stole from fakemon artists?

To my knowledge, (please let me know if im wrong) there has only been one claim of such a thing, and it was soon taken back as they soon found out that the palworld model was older than their's.

Which im pretty sure proves that claim false.

And to the people who are against AI art, don't get me wrong, I hate the idea as much as you do.

But AI image generation like many things is a tool.

And if used properly, tools can be useful.

like say for example, you have an idea you want to draw, but you can't fully figure it out in your head.

There are no pictures that fully convey what ur thinking in the depth you want for a reference, you could use an image generator for reference.

Add to an image in your own way, while removing the parts that were taken by the algorithm.

Be creative.

When tools are used properly, they can do a lot of good things.

The reason people hate AI art, is because people are being stupid and lazy with it.

Hell, i think pocketpair realized their mistake a long time ago as not only has that game been absolutely shat on in the steam reviews, but you cant even find it on their website, or at least i haven't.

Lastly, I'm gonna show you a trailer for a game pocketpair is also making, it should be coming put Q1 this year.

A game I have not heard mentioned this whole discourse.

As an honest question, what part of this looks AI generated to you?

Its a 2D sidescrolling platformer, said to be a mix of a metroidvania and a roguelite, also with base building elements since that seems to be a commonality for them.

The only things i could see that were taken or inspired by are the backgrounds, which feel very hollow knight, and the main mechanic being a possession mechanic which loosely reminded me of super mario Odyssey.

I've seen AI 2D animation, and it's usually pretty jarring due to how quickly everything warps and changes as things move.

I don't see that in this.

Nor do i recognize any of the monster or character designs.

I could be wrong and both palworld and never grave could be scams, seeing as both are in early access.

And if or when i am, then that's egg on my face.

Those that were all happy to play a new and exciting game, will seeth and mald.

And you can live happily, i guess.

But it at least shows they know some integrity.

I mean, as long as they make any of the new pals that come out more original than the 111 that they have now, we should be fine.

The only time we should be outraged, is if there is sort of harm coming to the workers, and I don't think I've heard any news on that.

If it bothers you that much, make your own game.

Actively do something about it rather than complain on the internet.

Like, I can't even imagine how difficult that is.

Especially for a smaller company.

Pokemon has it easy, It doesn't need defense.

Defend it from itself before defending it from others.

Stop paying for shit that doesn't work out the gate.

Do something to force the people making the bad game to do better.

And stop trying to shit on the little guy for your own ideals.

Criticism is fine, yelling over a game on the internet is not.

Not by a long shot.

But hey I don't think anyone is gonna read this.

Much less to the end.

Please boycott Palworld, apparently Pocketpair (devs of Palworld) a few years ago(?) made a party game that hosted a generative ai art model. Fuck that. Those models (Stable diffusion, etc) are created by abusing workers, and use unethical openweb datasets (private medical data, NSFL material, copyrighted material etc all gets used in openweb datasets).

I instantly drop any series that flirts with ai. Why twitter.com waited until Palworld's release to post about the past ai bs is beyond me, I would have liked to know that before purchasing. :/ Palworld was announced YEARS ago.

I had honestly thought Craftopia was the first game Pocketpair released because the YouTube videos I had watched of playthroughs had said it was thier first game release???

And I thought generative ai models were not allowed on steam?!?! apparently Steam changed the rules to allow generative ai models/assets in games, but only if they are tagged as using ai. Ugh. Way to worsen literacy of what ai actually means! (Populating a forest with randomized trees in a video game uses generative ai, but not the unethical kind. Same premise can be done with buildings, etc.)

Sigh. Lesson learned. :( Be sure to dig up the game dev before purchasing. This is so disappointing, I wish I could refund Palworld.

Palworld as is at launch does not seem to use any ai generated art. Generative ai that produce 3d models from text prompts are no where near the quality of the creature models, so it seems all models and animations have been done by hand at least. But with the dev's past history I am very concerned that Pocketpair may incorporate ai or worse, NFTs, into Palworld or future games. :(

Another interview, this time in English.

The same group made craftopia in 2020 which continues to be in early access with nearly the same copy-pasted explanation as to why its in early access as palworld. The game is supposedly riddled with the same bugs that craftopia has, runs on the same engine.

The same people made a game called AI: Art Impersonator which is a game where you use AI to make art. Its literally the same thing we've been talking on tumblr as art theft for years now.

Not to mention the CEO apparently talks about utilizing generative AI often.

The designs of a bunch of the creatures from Palworld are shameless ripoffs of pokemon at best, and at worst they were the result of feeding existing pokemon into generative AI to make new ones.

The game is a bunch of flipped assets, has gameplay from a ton of different genres, and promises a bunch of updates (the same ones that seemed to never come from Craftopia). The developers are scam artists trying to pull the same shit ((this is my opinion)).

Ill add sources in the morning because its LATE but i went down a fucking rabbit hole.

At best, the game is an asset-flip with no real unique gameplay because the people behind it did the same thing with Craftopia.

At worst, it's a game who's gameplay copies a multitude of other games, designs come from generative AI utilizing art that doesn't belong to them, and money that's soent on it won't be put back into developing the game at all.

It reminds me of the shit that ends up on videos going over Kickstarter Video Game Scams. Games that take ideas that people want, shoot too big, stop developing/updating once the people make enough money...

I recommend you return palworld if you got it and can still do so. Spend your money supporting another Early Access game who's devs have a clear roadmap, update frequently, and don't just abandon the game whil in early access only to come out with another game in early access.

Now I am Anime pretty boy Masako soldier in this game.

I got a new game called Craftopia, its a game out of Japan and still in the early stages and has errors, mistakes, translation issues and bugs which I wont hold against it. It’s an Early Release game so warts are to be expected.