Rayark, the developer most known as the driving force behind popular rhythm games such as Deemo and Cytus – has always been lauded not only for its creative musical collaborations, but also the downright amazing artwork complementing each of their songs. I remember the excitement of playing Deemo for the Nintendo Switch and even if I was not keen on a specific song, always found praise for its artistic cover artwork featuring the young girl, Deemo and the Masked Stranger.
But it seems like the artwork side of their products have caught the attention of artists and gamers alike, with discussions claiming the company replaced some of its artists / artistic teams in favour of AI generated artwork – and some of their recent artwork is being picked apart as having similarities to AI artwork, from art featuring characters with six fingers to a range of minor inconsistencies. For example:
In response to these claims, Rayark issued a statement via their social media channels, stating the following:
A full transcript of this letter can be found on the following page.
This has ultimately led into a he said, she said – and I imagine that more may come to light over the coming weeks and months, and one could also reasonably question what they mean by them recruiting “more members with AI expertise”. Are they artists who also dabble in AI on the side, or are they actively working on delivering the processes that would one day lead to most of their artwork generations being made by AI?
In my opinion, I will agree that we are in an age where AI Generated Content – from textural content to image generation – is now a thing and every industry is looking at how to implement it into its workflow. For the most part there is nothing wrong with it when used ethically. However the apprehension by artists is understandable, specially when their content and artistic style may used in training models that can generate something like their work in a matter of minutes or seconds – and they could be replaced by a machine pushing out hundreds of generations an hour.
However, when it comes to delivering high quality artwork that meets the highest standards that fans would have come to expect from any one of Rayark’s games (plus the cost associated with buying new song packs), the least a player should expect is that a real person was behind both the music and the associated cover artwork. Especially since, frankly, Rayark has done a mighty fine job with delivering consistently high quality in the past.
