RuneScape maker Jagex has insisted it’s going to 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, equivalent to “tooling effectivity.” However he promised Jagex won’t ever use genAI to “drive creativity.”
“We have a fairly arduous line stance with the crew, 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 will likely be no generative AI in the sport that they expertise.”
That guidelines out the likes of AI-generated artwork, which we’ve got seen in video games equivalent to Name of Responsibility, AI-generated voices, which we’ve got seen in Arc Raiders, and AI-generated textual content / dialogue, which, once more, we’ve got seen pop up in a variety of video games.
“The place we’re open to using AI is in issues like tooling effectivity,” Dobrowski continued, “how will we make the best way we work extra environment friendly in order to make our workers’s lives simpler and permit us to provide higher content material. However we don’t need to be utilizing AI to drive creativity.” Jagex is even talking with its exterior companions to ensure no genAI is getting used in “inappropriate methods in any of their work which may filter by way of to the top sport.”
Using generative AI in sport improvement is among the hottest subjects in the business, and it has sparked a variety of controversies. Following the reveal of Divinity on the 2025 The Recreation Awards, Swen Vincke, boss of developer Larian, met with a backlash after he stated the studio was utilizing genAI in varied capacities. Larian ended up having to handle AI considerations in a reddit AMA in which the studio confirmed a U-turn on some facets of its use.
Jagex’s “arduous line stance” is in distinction to the strategy of some online game corporations 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 lately carried out mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it wanted to be “aggressive in making use of AI.” Lifeless Area creator Glen Schofield additionally lately detailed his plans to “repair” the business in half through using generative AI in sport improvement, and former God of Struggle dev Meghan Morgan Juinio stated: “… if we don’t embrace [AI], I feel we’re promoting ourselves brief.”
Outdoors of video video games, some leisure corporations are banning using genAI altogether. For instance, Video games Workshop lately banned using generative AI for the manufacturing of its designs and content material, a choice many Warhammer followers welcomed.
As for RuneScape, it was in the information lately after a UK court docket dominated stealing RuneScape Gold was felony theft in a case that might have wider repercussions for the online game business.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.