Strategy-focused indie publisher Hooded Horse isn’t interested in working with developers who use generative AI and has inserted a new clause into contracts to prevent that from happening.
During a recent interview with Kotaku, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender said generative AI has made his life more difficult and claims the nascent technology “infests shit in a way it shouldn’t.”
“It is now written into our contracts if we’re publishing the game, ‘no fucking AI assets,'” said Bender.
Bender said Hooded Horse is advising developers to avoid using any form of generative AI during production, because there’s always a risk something will slip into the final product. The Alters developer 11 Bit Studios and Ubisoft both demonstrated how easily that can happen last year.
“We’ve gotten to the point where we also talk to developers and we recommend they don’t use any gen AI anywhere in the process because some of them might otherwise think, ‘Okay, well, maybe what I’ll do is for this place, I’ll put it as a placeholder,’ right?” continued Bender.
“Like some, people will have this thought, like they would never want to let it in the game, but they’ll think, ‘It can be a placeholder in this prototype build.’ But if that gets done, of course, there’s a chance that that slips through, because it only takes one of those slipping through in some build and not getting replaced or something. […] Because of that, we’re constantly having to watch and deal with it and try to prevent it from slipping in, because it’s cancerous.”
Hooded Horse isn’t the only indie publisher swerving generative AI. Last year, Pocketpair communications director and publishing manager John Buckley told Game Developer the Palworld maker won’t partner with studios that use the technology.
Generative AI usage remains contentious within the video game industry (and others)
The use of generative AI technology in game production is a divisive issue.
A litany of major companies such as Ubisoft, Tencent, Square Enix, Embracer, Krafton, and EA have all thrown their weight behind the tech, often claiming it will streamline production and allow developers to focus on more creative tasks.
Those assertions have come amid rampant layoffs and studio closures across the video game industry. Some reports indicate that isn’t exactly a coincidence.
There are also widespread concerns over the legality of outputs produced by some generative AI tools—such as those concocted by ChatGPT maker OpenAI—that have been trained on copyrighted works.
In 2023, notable authors such as George R.R. Martin and John Grisham sued OpenAI after alleging their copyright was infringed to train the system. As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, that lawsuit continued to make headway last year. The New York Times also sued both OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement claims in 2023.
As noted by The Guardian in 2024, OpenAI previously stated it would have been “impossible” to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material.
Back in the video game industry, although major execs continue to tout the perceived benefits of generative AI, it seems rank-and-file developers aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet.
According to the 2025 State of the Game Industry survey, only 13 percent of those surveyed felt generative AI tools and technology will have a positive impact on the video game industry. Meanwhile, 30 percent of respondents suggested it will instead leave a negative mark.
