An Awkward AI Silence, 27/02/2025
Why is the games biz missing from a creative industries copyright campaign?
We explain why video games aren’t part of the Make It Fair campaign (even though they’d like to be)
Monolith leads a series of shocking studio closures at Warner Bros
Monster Hunter: Wilds tops the week’s releases
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Hello VGIM-ers,
Welcome back to another newsletter.
Before we get into the Big Read, I’m happy to say that I’ve been tapped up by game discovery app Ludocene to become one of their game experts.
Created by the team behind the Family Gaming Database, Ludocene lets users discover thousands of great video games by swiping and saving their favourites in the manner of a dating app.
And on top of letting you discover loads of stuff from its database of games, it will also feature recommendations from video game boffins like Simon Parkin, Brian Crecente and Rachel Watts (and, unfortunately for many, me) to help guide you to the good stuff.
Ludocene’s success is not a slam dunk yet. It is currently being Kickstarted and needs more fine people to back it. Head to its page here to shove in some cash if you fancy it.
And with that done, let’s turn our attention from something very human to something more artificial shall we?
The big read - An Awkward AI Silence
Creative injuries: The UK’s creative industries kicked off earlier this week, launching a campaign against the Government’s proposal to change copyright laws to favour our new AI overlords.
Fairly noisy: The Make It Fair campaign argued on the front page of just about every newspaper across the land that Government proposals to force rights holders to “opt-out” from having their copyrighted content scraped by voracious LLMs amounted to little more than “theft” from Big Tech businesses - pinching cash from the pockets of UK creative businesses and threatening their existence.
Broad coalition: The campaign - which argues that the law should shift to an “opt-in” principle where rights holders determine whether or not to have their stuff scraped (i.e. because someone pays them to licence access) - was backed by big name creatives such as VGIM enjoying author Richard Osman, TV host Sandi Toksvig, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and phantasmic opera peddler Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Awkward silence: But while Baroness Kidron reeled off the names of creative figures celebrating copyright laws like its 1710 again, there was one industry conspicuous by its absence: the video games sector. As its peers lined up one after another to thwack the Government in the manner of a scene from Airplane, the games industry’s trade associations and leading businesses kept their thoughts to themselves as the rabble roused.
Quietly sceptical: So has the games industry turned quisling in the face of Government pressure on AI? Not quite. After doing some digging this week, it’s clear that the voices from across the UK games industry agree that the mooted changes to copyright are concerning - especially when the industry has proven functional models can be built in ways that respects the rules.
Small ‘p’ international politics: But with the UK games industry reliant upon - and in many cases wrapped within - international businesses who are big on LLMs, the explosion in hostilities between the Government and the creative industries have caught it in the middle: forcing it to get its points across quietly in private instead.
Policy based evidence making
Copywrong: You can’t fully understand why the games industry has sidelined itself from the public copyright consultation chat without understanding how the Government’s cack-handed handling of the consultation forced it into an uncomfortable position.
In the misty depths of time: On 17 December 2024, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) launched a consultation which sought to “ensure the UK’s legal framework for AI and copyright supports the UK creative industries and AI sector together.”
Not rhetorical questions: In particular, it sought to deal with one big challenge posed by the rise of large language models. If commercial AI companies need access to vast quantities of data to train their models, then how would the rights holders of copyrighted content - which would almost certainly be hoovered up by scraping tools - be protected? And what could the Government do to create an environment which encourages innovation within AI while keeping rights holders happy?
Problems ahead: So far, so uncontroversial. However, there was a slight problem. The Government had commissioned Matt Clifford, the very brainy (but very commercially conflicted) AI expert, to write its AI Opportunities Action Plan.
Bible bashing: In the text, which has since been described as a “holy writ” in Government by the cads at Politico, Clifford’s plan argued that Government needed to “reform the UK text and data mining regime so that it is at least as competitive as the EU” because copyright uncertainty “hindering innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI.” And even though his plan was officially published in January 2025 after the Government’s copyright consultation opened, it’s clear that meeting Matt’s plan was of paramount importance to our policy making masters.
Toasty pages: So the Government did what all Governments do when they want to arrive at one particular outcome: it tried to cook the books. Rather than publish a truly open consultation that risked contradicting St Matt of Clifford’s AI commandments, it indulged itself in what a former colleague described as “policy based evidence making” to try to force respondents into giving the answer it wanted to hear.
It’s a kind of magic: You can see this in the way the consultation was framed. After solemnly laying out all the reasons that the copyright situation was apparently confusing to both artificial intelligence and the creative industries (the latter disagreed), The Government suggested that there was only one way to fairly resolve the issues it had discovered/invented. To protect AI companies and the creative industries from confusion, the Government suggested that AI companies could indiscriminately scrape copyrighted content unless a rights holder “opts-out” via a reservation system that’s powered by technology that…currently doesn't fully exist yet. Right.
Taking gullible out of the dictionary: Predictably, the creative industries were, in the words of two contacts, “exceptionally pissed off” and ready to “give the middle finger” to the Government over the consultation.
Meet to unmatch: Partly, this was due to the fact that the sector simply had not been properly consulted ahead of the proposal being floated. While the creative industries were mostly herded into hefty roundtables to discuss their thoughts on AI, Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for DSIT, was rejecting their meeting requests while seemingly operating a revolving door for his beloved Big Tech.
Gulp it down: But on top of that, the creative industries were annoyed because it was clear that the Government had supped far too strongly from the AI Koolaid. Rather than interrogating businesses training AI models about their motivations for tweaking copyright rules (read: they’re so unprofitable that they’d fail to meet their obligations if they had to pay for them without VC cash), whether they’d actually tried to negotiate with rights holders for access to content (leading figures in rights orgs tell me they mostly haven’t) or to consider whether it’s fair for small rights holders to negotiate with a billion dollar business to respect their rights (it isn’t), Government blindly acquiesced to the interests of tech giants over the creative backbone of the country - kicking off an almighty fight-y in the process.
The Grand Canyon: In short, the Government’s attempt to try to cook the books of its consultation didn’t close the gap between creative businesses and technology companies as it meant to; it widened it instead. And while most companies easily found their way to either side of a polarised debate, games companies - whose work obviously straddles creativity and technology - found themselves stuck in the awkward middle.
The neutral zone
Hushed whispers: So, I know what you’re thinking: what does the industry actually think about the proposal? After having a number of behind the scenes chats with people in the know, the gist of it is this. The UK industry is broadly very supportive of Make It Fair’s argument for an “opt-in” proposal, but it can’t declare it publicly because it is too closely aligned to international games and tech businesses that are too deeply in the generative AI waters.
Wholesale theft: The industry is well aware that the Government’s current proposal would essentially sacrifice their copyrighted content on St Matt of Clifford’s high altar to AI. As Dr Tommy Thompson of AI and Games wrote on his site when filleting the consultation proposal, the Government’s favoured option would allow AI models to scrape “any aspect of a game” unless a developer reserved their rights - including its text, its art assets, its promotional work and even its code. As Rich Barham, a Triple A games veteran with two decades of experience in the industry, told me about the proposal in its current form “I believe it's a critical risk to all of the creative industries, games not least.”
Indie deep end: Crucially, that risk is felt by businesses of all sizes across the industry. It’s most keenly felt amongst small businesses, solo creators and freelancers who, as it stands, would see their work trussed up and served to LLMs for their consumption at no extra cost.
Power plays: However, concern over the proposal is also being felt at the top end of the industry too. The games sector has always fought very hard - sometimes scarily so - to protect its intellectual property, as evidenced just last week by The Pokemon Company getting a cool $10m from a developer who aped its Red and Blue games. But even with the hefty IP enforcement resources available to it, policing the “opt-out” system would still give rights holders enormous extra work to do to protect their works: forcing the sinned against to pay for the sinner’s misdemeanour.
Bullshit alarm: So it’s a bad deal for games businesses from a commercial perspective. But the industry’s scepticism towards the consultation is powered by something a little deeper too. In comparison to other creative industries, the games sector has more experience building its own technologies - including LLMs. And as a result of this, its keenly attuned “bullshit alarm” has suggested for a while that Big Tech’s narrative about the effectiveness of generative AI should be treated cautiously.
Definitely Meh-be: In particular, the game’s industry’s experiments with generative AI have shown two things that counter the wider generative AI narrative. The first is that the technology is currently, well, not very useful.
Imprecision: While previous VGIMs have shown it can be handy in contexts like comms or marketing (where generating generic text for a generic sales message is sort of fine) the same concerns around the tech always emerge when it comes to game development: it’s too imprecise to produce great work, it doesn’t easily align with finely tuned production pipelines and it’s surprisingly costly for something that consumers are not exactly crying out for.
The only way is ethics: But the second reason why the industry is sceptical of the narrative peddled by the Big LLM beasts is that companies have built their own models in ways that do respect copyright.
R&D aficionados: Commercial games businesses like Riot and EA have been experimenting with private models that they’ve trained entirely on materials and data entirely of their own. And while these LLMs will serve a different purpose to one created by OpenAI for public consumption (which may mean their requirements are different), their existence shows that the barrier to respecting copyright law isn’t technical or financial; it’s ideological.
Limited influence: But despite all these reasons for games companies to speak up, the industry in the UK has had to sit on its hands. And it’s had to do this because the international businesses who own, or support, most of the sector are publicly talking up the value of generative AI in a way that its British based businesses can’t be seen to contradict.
International pressure: Partly, this is due to the “Big Techification” (yes, I just invented that term) of games. The emergence of games as crucial pillars in big tech companies like Tencent and Microsoft does show the power of video games overall. But it concentrates it into the parent companies who are working on tools that may clash with the interests of its games companies - forcing UK based partners to tone down concerns in public.
Commercial considerations: But even outside of the Big Tech players dominating games, there are plenty of international leaders in the games sector who see value in the tech and want to keep their policy options as open as possible.
America First: This is particularly true in the US, where leaders have talked up generative AI as a pathway to growth. Andrew Wilson at EA and Strauss Zelnick have both, for example, talked up generative AI in the past 12 months to investors as a route for growth. Activision Blizzard, meanwhile, was forced to dob itself into Steam earlier this week for using generative AI art assets within Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 which, spoiler alert, happened to be rubbish.
Neutral zone: So while the UK games sector and its international partners are concerned over the copyright implications of the Government’s proposal, they can’t noisily campaign against it here in case it sets back the agendas of international colleagues, parent companies and investors - pushing the industry into a pained neutrality instead.
Might isn’t right
Awkward silence: So, will we see the games industry sign up for the Make It Fair campaign? Don’t count on it. Unless the UK games sector can magically reverse two decades of industry consolidation and the growth of Big Tech to build enough big voices of its own to speak out, the industry will likely continue to speak in hushed and careful tones.
Increase the resolution: But could the industry play a meaningful role in making the current proposal fairer? That could well be possible. While trade associations, games companies and influential individuals will probably keep their counsel publicly, they definitely have submitted responses to Government expressing concerns. And although the closure of the consultation marks the end of the first part of the process, it does mean that the firing gun has been fired on the next round of lobbying - something the sector can influence in two ways.
Grab the spade: The first way it can make its voice heard is by handing itself over to Government as a knowledgeable and friendly tech savvy spade to help it dig it out of the hole it has found itself in.
Knowledge unlocked: As it stands, the only thing the consultation has achieved so far is to make Government look like useful idiots for Big Tech businesses. This, I’d posit, is a bad thing. Therefore, games companies and its legion of AI experts could be meaningfully deployed to help Government cut through the hype around AI, demonstrate the actual usefulness of generative technology (and its many limits) and show off the capabilities of private models that do respect copyright to demonstrate the debate isn’t quite as “old world vs new world” as some may suggest it is.
Grassroots allies: Second, and from the creative industries campaigning side, major games companies may not be able to speak out privately but games professionals, freelancers and indies certainly can. So even if the Make It Fair Campaign will struggle to get the official industry seal of approval, it still has plenty of voice actors, artists, developers, musicians and writers who could row in behind the cause - giving it an opportunity to broaden support (while respecting tricky industry politics).
Select your player: But for now, I think it’s worth me explicitly saying that I think Make It Fair’s proposal to shift from an “opt-out” to an “opt-in” system is the best outcome for the games industry.
Leave Hobson out of this: Because ultimately we have a choice here. We could back the Government’s proposal to bet the house - and the value of thousands of British businesses - on a handful of commercially unviable AI businesses promising benefits that magic bean sellers would be embarrassed to shout about. Or we can support a proposal that protects the principle that creativity is valuable, that builds on hundreds of years of law and process that can be reshaped through negotiation to be fit for a modern age and which supports (rather than sells out) British creative businesses that have a massively positive impact on the country and the world at large. *breathes*
Chamberlains or Churchills: And in our new “might is right” political age, I’d suggest politely that it may be more valuable as a general point of policy to assert the rights of businesses who do add value to UK PLC - rather than appeasing AI giants whose interest is in dominating, rather than contributing to, our culture, society and economy.
News in brief
Nemesis slain: Warner Bros has announced it is closing down three studios, including Monolith - the creators of the Nemesis system powered Shadow of Mordor. In addition to shuttering the legendary developer, WB has also closed Player First Games (which developed Multiversus) and its studio in San Diego. Sigh.
Lucky for some: Balatro and Luck be a Landlord have both had their PEGI ratings changed from an 18 to a 12, following successful appeals to the European games rating head honchos. In addition to tweaking their ratings on the basis that ‘mitigating fantastical elements’ prevented either game from meaningfully representing gambling, PEGI has also committed to a wider review of its content criteria to provide more nuance for developers in the future. Lovely stuff.
Net-Easing away: NetEase has continued to give the industry a big case of the wobblies, after a Bloomberg report this weekend suggested the company is on course to make further cuts to its international games biz. According to the report, William Ding, CEO of NetEase, is furiously refocusing the company to pursue sales heavy ever-green service titles, reducing investment into international partners and allowing partner studios to explore new publishing relationships. The company kinda denies it in the piece, but doesn’t really.
Censored: The New York Times has an interesting article about how games like Marvel Rivals censor words that the Chinese Government are not great fans of. It argues that because games are social spaces, the policing of terms like “free Taiwan” risks changing cultural standards beyond China’s borders - making games influential in a surprising way. If only someone was writing a whole book about this…
Meta’s Best: Meta has launched a $50m fund for creators making experiences in its Horizon Worlds ecosystem in an effort to boost the company’s “don’t call it a metaverse” online world business. If you’d like to find out how you can apply for funding/pinch some cash from Mark Zuckerberg’s pockets (delete as applicable to what motivates you), PG Biz has the lowdown for you.
Moving on
Plenty of powerful pairs in the job moves this week, starting with Gemma Brown and Rob O’Farrell being appointed Co-CEOs of Dovetail Games…Simon Smith and Matthew Knott have co-founded multiplatform play studio Ludo Gamelabs, with the former acting as Creative Director and the latter as Managing Director…More promotions over at YRS TRULY with Lou Jones landing the plum title of Head of Campaign Strategy and Siân Hutchinson bumped up to Lead Campaign Manager…And even though he’s not marching into Trailmix with someone else, Matt Walsh has nevertheless popped up as Talent Acquisition Partner at the Love & Pies maker…
Jobs ahoy
PCGamesN wants you to provide people (and the company) advice as its new Guides Editor…Nvidia is hiring a Director of Product Management – Generative AI for Games if you fancy being helping out with the Make It Fair campaign from the inside…Razer wants you to cut through to its fans as its Community Specialist…Sports Interactive needs a Senior Character Artist to help it get Football Manager out on time this year *sobs*...And Blizzard is looking for someone to become its Senior Brand Manager, World of Warcraft out in Irvine, CA…
Events and conferences
DevGAMM 2025, Gdansk - 27th-28th February
The Games Growth Summit, London - 28th February
Tokyo Indie Games Summit, Tokyo - 8th-9th March
Hit Games Conference, Istanbul - 14th March
Game Developers Conference, San Francisco - 17th-21st March
Games of the week
Monster Hunter: Wilds - Hunt monsters in the wilds in the latest entry in Capcom’s critically acclaimed - and pleasingly named - series.
Two Point Museum - Prove that organising a day out at a museum is the best way to spend your time in the latest entry in the Two Point series.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection - Discover the heart of the card based series in this retro collection available across platforms.
Before you go…
What can novellists learn from video games? According to Nick Newman, author of children’s novels including Witchborn and In the Shadow of Heroes, there’s loads actually.
In an entertaining read for Literary Hub, Nick argues for the importance of taking games seriously as a source of inspiration for novellists - highlighting Colson Whitehead’s little known love of XCOM as one such reason to do so.
Fascinating, eh?