When Sega announced Crazy Taxi: World Tour yesterday, there was a burst of excitement from ’90s kids that one of the most iconic arcade franchises of all time would finally be returning. That excitement was quickly snuffed out, though, when the Steam store page indicated that Generative AI had been used in the development of the game. The vague description didn’t really clue us into how extensive AI was integrated in the process, but Sega has now clarified exactly what it used AI for.
First, Sega spoke to Game Informer and noted that AI was used in “the development of background assets.” Still somewhat vague, but at an event for the game’s reveal, Kotaku was able to speak with series creator Kenji Kanno and was more direct with its questioning. In response to Kotaku, Kanno said (via a translator), “We used it as a reference. So our artists would pull up [and] generate some of their ideas and then they would look at that, you know, generated image and then they would draw the actual thing.”
Elaborating further, Kanno explained, “So actual creators, everything from programming to assets, everything is made by an actual human. It’s only used as a reference for them to look at and then they would actually create the actual thing that would go into the game.” Since that still leaves some doubt, Kotaku followed up and Kanno stated, “For us, the extent of how we use generative AI is only what I mentioned earlier.”
“[It’s] just for ideas and just as a reference,” he said. “Moving forward in the future [generative AI] is probably going to be more of a hot topic, but I think that’s all I can say right now on how we use generative AI for this game.” In essence, no Generative AI assets will be present in the final game, but certain textures and background details will have been made using AI reference material. That’s… better than nothing?
I find it hard to not remain upset about this because it really makes no sense. All artists working in creative fields utilize reference material to inspire their works. Animators at Disney will look at past creations or even wildlife photos, etc. Game designers check out other games and use stock photos to spark ideas for geometry. It’s not a new practice by any means. The big difference is that older reference material isn’t stealing from artists to generative itself or expediting the heat death of the planet. So, even if Crazy Taxi: World Tour doesn’t feature AI textures and such, it’s still been tainted by AI slop.
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Sega states it will use AI to assist in development, but only in ‘appropriate use cases’
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
