With big tech companies hungry for AI, one might wonder what NetEase, one of the most prominent Chinese publishers, thinks about the matter. To no one’s surprise, it did think about embracing generative AI and even reportedly had a research division focused on the tech, but it was shut down, according to Goichi Suda (known as Suda51), the creator of Lollipop Chainsaw, who is now working on the action-adventure game Romeo is a Dead Man at Grasshopper Manufacture, a subsidiary of NetEase.
Speaking to Eurogamer, he revealed that apart from this, the publisher also told its studios not to use AI in games, “to not use it at all.” As for the reasons, Suda doesn’t know for sure, but he has a couple of ideas: