Chinese giant NetEase uses AI generators to create game assets

Chinese game developer NetEase has started using AI generators to produce game assets faster than human illustrators can. The company confirms this. Illustrators in China fear their work is disappearing.

Dall-E: a Chinese game character
in the style of World of Warcraft

NetEase trains the AI ​​models on its own footage, the company tells Rest of World. This way it can use its own style to produce new assets for use in games and for promotion. Until now, that was the domain of illustrators. The use of the AI ​​generators should speed up game development, NetEase says.

Other Chinese game developers declined to comment to the site, but involved game developers and illustrators say they too have started using AI generators and that it is having major consequences. A freelance illustrator says she no longer creates her own images, but only corrects AI images for a tenth of the rate she was paid a few months ago. Tencent spoke out a few months ago against the use of AI in creating illustrations.

There have been stories going around for some time that recent developments in AI could make many jobs redundant in the long term, but this is the first time that a game company has confirmed that it is using AI generators to replace the work that designers and illustrators did. to take.