Level-5 president and CEO Akihiro Hino has taken to X to address the criticism levelled on the company for its Level 5 Vision event where it was noticed that generative AI was used during the presentation. The event featured games from beloved series such as Professor Layton and Yo-Kai Watch. Here’s the lengthy statement that Mr. Hino wrote on X via machine translation:
“It seems that some people have become concerned about the content of the project because AI was used in some of the video footage shown during the event, so I’d like to explain the situation.
Quite simply, we wanted to make the presentation more spectacular, and as part of an experiment, we incorporated some of the latest AI technology into the production process. However, it appears that this made some people uncomfortable, and for that, I sincerely apologise.
That said, at our company, everything that contributes to the appeal and individuality of our released games—including the scenarios, character designs, and fundamental settings—is created entirely by people.
The AI-driven efficiency improvements we are pursuing are primarily focused on digitising creative work that has already been created by humans. For example, using AI to accurately convert original artwork into polygons for 3D models. There will be no careless or unrefined AI-generated output incorporated into our released games, so please rest assured.
In fact, the time saved through AI-assisted efficiency improvements is allowing our creators to spend more time on the truly creative aspects of development. As a result, I believe the finished products are reaching a level that will satisfy you even more than before.
Ultimately, we are currently experimenting and working hard toward a plan to reduce the development time for major titles from around five years to just two.
However, I cannot deny that this time we made extensive use of AI because we wanted to deliver a presentation that was easy to understand and visually spectacular.
We will take this experience as a lesson and use it to improve going forward. We hope you’ll look forward to Level-5’s next presentation.”
People are getting so pissy over AI use..
Pretty sure the reason is because lots of people didn’t want to buy RAM and storage or maybe even a GPU when they had plenty of time to do so before prices went nuts. DDR5 was pretty cheap for at least a year for nice 32-64GB kits.
Oh well, ya snooze ya lose, that’s what happens when people think they only need to upgrade their PC once every decade.. Lmao.
I disagree with you. There was no way to know that RAM, SSD, and other hardware prices would skyrocket. Hardware manufacturers also shouldn’t prioritize AI companies over end consumers without even making an announcement first. As I said, there was no way to know that manufacturers would do so.
Also, many people just couldn’t buy PC parts before, including myself. It is ironic that when I and others finally could, the prices got insanely high.
You think you save more when upgrading every couple years vs every decade??
Think your math is off
This is such a narrow minded take. “I got mine, I don’t care if everyone else is screwed.” Not to mention that that’s literally only a small part of why people are upset
Yea buddy. The whole reason AI is collectively being frowned upon is because some pc gamers are stuck with lower spec rigs. No other cascading series of reasons at all.
I’m 100% against AI as a substitute for human creativity, and in some regard I’m glad of the backlash against Level-5 for this but there is one point of clarity I want to make which is that the games that Level-5 have actually released of late are actually really good, and Professor Layton looks like it too may also be good, at least to my eye.
Most of the egregious AI usage appears to be in the marketing videos which is incredibly jarring but far less important than the actual product itself. So let’s hope they’ve learned their lesson but let’s also give them a chance because I’d rather avoid bandwagoning on a publisher who is actually making good games, there are better targets. Of course if Layton arrives and feels like AI slop, then it’s a different matter.
Hmm, Level-5 CEO just clarified above:
”For example, using AI to accurately convert original artwork into polygons for 3D models. There will be no careless or unrefined AI-generated output incorporated into our released games, so please rest assured.”
They only use AI to automate slow and technical processes, not creative ones, as stated here:
”In fact, the time saved through AI-assisted efficiency improvements is allowing our creators to spend more time on the truly creative aspects of development. As a result, I believe the finished products are reaching a level that will satisfy you even more than before.”
He even says they have a plan to decrease development time from 5 years to 2 thanks to AI assistance.
I defend using AI to help with difficult and sluggish processes, as it makes development less stressful. However, I also support using AI to aid the creative process, such as when artists want to refine their work more or overcome creative block.
Level-5 isn’t even using AI for that, so you can rest assured.
No, everything he said is also completely wrong — for example, about “convert original artwork into polygons for 3D models.”
If they’re doing it that way, then where, in that case, is there a place for artists, modelers, and so on?
And yes, why did you decide that using AI in the creative process is a good idea? Using AI in the creative process is a terrible idea, since AI can’t come up with anything new or creative — it mostly just produces generic, run-of-the-mill stuff that can’t really be called creativity.
And for the purposes you mentioned (refine their work more or overcome creative block), it will definitely do more harm than good.
I only agree with AI being used to help giving insights when artists are struggling or to help newcomers when they don’t have much knowledge, making professional level art with AI assistance.
Why do you think using AI to refine their work and help with creative block can do more harm than good?
Good. Now make a good game for once.
“visually spectacular”
that professor layton remake looks awful visually.
I think it looks good. I just felt the eyes and character expressions look weird and robotic.
Only losers are against using AI as a tool to make game development easier and faster. You want big and beautiful games, but you don’t want to pay more money for them and/or wait 5 years+. 🤷♂️
No I don’t. I wasn’t smaller games with individuality and expert human craftmanship and I can wait. There’s too many games coming out as there is, what the hell is anyone in a rush for?
Using AI in the creative process isn’t something you can streamline with AI — after all, what kind of art are you even talking about if you’ve “optimized” the very essence of art itself? It’s still important to people that something wasn’t just thrown together haphazardly, and GenAI is exactly about that—just throwing things together haphazardly.
AI has much more useful applications in video game development, such as map editing: replacing textures on a hundred objects would be better done with AI than spending an hour of your own time on it. Or, for example, you could improve and speed up testing (you can never have too much QA) by having agents play the latest build at night to look for crashes and bugs, and perhaps teach them to file reports—this would allow you to stabilize builds more often and conduct playtests with real people. All of this needs to be done carefully, preferably on local specialized models.
You are ignoring that art is what the artist gives meaning to, not just the origin of every part of it. Think about modern art, you can take a chair, paint it and call it art. When you think about a modeler, he uses a mouse he didn’t make, he changes pixels that he also didn’t make, he uses polygons that he didn’t create, he is using knowledge to model, to sculpt a 3d model, you know what I mean? He didn’t need to create the tools.
He can tell AI to create a starry night background. It can be beautiful and he can say it is beautiful. Does it make it less beautiful because it is made by AI, even if the artist gave it a prompt describing what he wanted? Wasn’t the artist a part of the creation process? He is merely using a tool to help him.
Arguments against AI are like this: “Why did this artist use a paintbrush? Why didn’t he use his bare hands? This is not art!”
Reactionaries and witch-hunting are why we can’t have nice things.
Trend chasers and CEOs who see no value in real art is why we can’t have nice things
I’m sorry, but we wouldn’t have gotten anything good out of it precisely because of AI.
And the widespread backlash against Level-5 over AI is clearly linked to the fact that, for most people, video game development is still a creative process where the journey — with all its challenges — is forever imprinted on the game itself. Mechanics, game design, narrative elements — all of these carry with them a history, compromises, poor decisions, social dynamics within the team, and the search for a unique vision.
The absence of such a process is precisely what fuels distrust and disdain for games labeled “GenAI” — what kind of creators are you if you’ve “optimized” creativity itself? People still care that something wasn’t just thrown together haphazardly, and GenAI is exactly that: “thrown together haphazardly.”
Will not be buying any of their games. I was going to, but not a chance now. Level 5 are dead to me. Anyway moving on, because there’s far too much being made these days and I’ve got a lot to catch up with, that didn’t use AI.
Are you mentally disabled or just stupid?
Nothing was made with AI. All of the creation and art was done by humans.
AI tool content can be used in some way which is fine but it can’t be used for everything around us. You have to do the work yourself instead of getting AI do it for you.
I’m sorry, but no. Work created by AI cannot be called creative; it’s just generic nonsense that no one in their right mind would call creative.
Fuck off
“No AI in final game” being said after the fact is a line all the pubs are using and it’s worn thin and needs to end. Put on the label indicating AI dev and take responsibility for what you don’t stand for
Level-5’s apology is a useful case study, because Hino draws a line between AI in the marketing footage and AI in the actual game, insisting scenarios, character designs and core settings stay human-made, with the tooling aimed at things like converting original artwork into polygons. That distinction matters more than the apology itself. The same logic explains why an ai lawyer tool works against attorney-written playbooks instead of improvising, and why professional users want zero data retention and track-changes redlines rather than a chat window. Efficiency on the boring parts, human judgement on the decisions. If Level-5 actually cuts five-year cycles to two without gutting the craft, that is the interesting experiment, not the Vision event backlash.