Hey everyone.
I want to take this opportunity to discuss a very important topic. This is something that is going to affect all of us eventually, and is something that I hope I don’t find myself on the wrong side of when history illuminates the details. I’m talking about AI imagery.
Mount Baker Games has utilized Midjourney to produce many images. If you look through Tyryn Sentinels, you will find that AI imagery appears on over 80% of our cards. Many consider AI image generators to be theft. If the imagery model was trained on an artist’s property without that artist’s consent, then it is the logical extension of copyright law that those images are illegal reproductions of the artist’s work. I’m a firm believer that the courts and legislative bodies need to handle and codify these situations, because the status quo is untenable. The technology is out, the technology will be used, and it should be used ethically. If a model is trained entirely on images that it has the rights to, then using this technology can be ethical. The issue is that presently there is not yet any requirement for Midjourney, or any other AI image generator, to demonstrate that their product is legal. We are prepared to lose our license to the images on Tyryn Sentinels cards if the courts determine that they are illegal. I could try to use the fact that such court cases haven’t occurred yet as our shield, but that is not the crux of why we think that using this black magic is reasonable.
The ends justify the means.
That’s a dangerous sentence, used by mad men to commit atrocities. Hear me out, though. Mount Baker Games has spent approximately 15% of its total budget on graphics and images. We’ve paid artists and graphic designers. We also paid someone a couple thousand dollars for a bunch of proof of concept images who proceeded to take that money and run. The fact is, we’re a tiny outfit, and getting to print at all has been a miracle. Producing 200 more images is a task that likely would have prevented us from ever reaching salesworthy. The important thing is, using these image generators is not our ideal. We are constantly running into shortcomings and frustrations surrounding the use of Midjourney. If the Manifold Project is successful, and we’re able to print many sets, we intend to use a substantial portion of our budget to commission quality images. In particular, Midjourney is terrible at making ‘aliens’, or consistent versions of any thing that is not real. This is a tremendous limitation for a space fantasy game. Set 3 is going to take place largely on the planet of Bindoff, the home planet of the Ro’ca’gai. We have thus far commissioned 3 images of Ro’ca’gai, and in order to get through set 3, we need ~25 more.
Our game is excellent. We’re very excited to share it with the world. We lack the skill set to populate the ‘card art’ box, and if we become a success and this company grows, you can bet that we’re committed to fixing that weakness. And by ‘fix it’, we mean hiring talented artists.
And that is why we hope you’ll excuse our indiscretions.
Thank you for your time,
–Brad
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