Wizards of the Coast has confirmed that “some AI components” were used in recent marketing artwork and that it will be rethinking how it works with vendors for its promotional creative efforts.
For those unfamiliar with the situation, Wizards of the Coast released a new marketing campaign for Magic: The Gathering and people quickliy noticed it looked off and as if AI had created some or all of it.
In a now deleted post on X/Twitter (via PC Gamer), WotC denied that the art was made with AI.
“We understand confusion by fans given the style being different than card art, but we stand by our previous statement,” WotC wrote. “This art was created by humans and not AI.”
Now, WotC admits “some AI components” did make its way into the images.
Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI. Read on for more. (1/5)
— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) January 7, 2024
“Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI. Read on for more,” Wizards of the Coast wrote on X/Twitter. “As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image.
“While the art came from a vendor, it’s on us to make sure that we are living up to our promise to support the amazing human ingenuity that makes Magic great. We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products. Now we’re evaluating how we work with vendors on creative beyond our products – like these marketing images – to make sure that we are living up to those values.”
This isn’t the first time WotC has been caught up in an AI-related controversey, as there was a debate at the end of 2023 whether some of the art in 2024 D&D Player’s Handbook was created with AI as some claimed they found an image of a dwarf missing one of his arms.
You can check out some of the most promotional images in question below in a post from @MarcoMA4PS that says “I guess the whole ad campaign was made with A/I generated imagery, then retouched to give it a semblance of man-made craft.”
I guess the whole ad campaign was made with A/I generated imagery, then retouched to give it a semblance of man-made craft. pic.twitter.com/St5bXhcXfu
— MarcoMaps Bernardini (@MarcoMA4PS) January 6, 2024
This latest controversy caused some WotC artists to say they won’t work with the company if it plans to use AI like this in the future. One such artist was Jason Rainville, who recently wrote after WotC’s apology that “This was what I hoped would be the case. So, all in all good news. I’m going to keep an eye on what the evaluation of their relationship w vendors is going forward. And if those ads are going to be removed or replaced.”
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.