AI art is becoming more and more prevalent in a variety of media, and it has recently become involved in two fresh controversies with Magic: The Gathering from Wizards of the Coast and Apex Legends from Respawn. It has been alleged that both have employed AI art or at least AI human-touched art, for promotional purposes. The bigger issue is arguably what’s going on with Wizards of the Coast. They backed down after being accused of employing artificial intelligence (AI) art in a promotional piece, claiming players were confused by how different it was from Magic card art and that AI was not utilized in its creation.
Why do people believe the AI in advertising art?
There were a few possibilities that WotC was either lying about the artwork or the artist had not given them the whole truth after hundreds of individuals pointed out discrepancies in the artwork that showed obvious indications of AI creation. Alternatively, and maybe most likely, there’s a third approach that mixes artificial intelligence art with human touch-ups that they’re attempting to pass off as a technicality.
Although the commercial art was created using AI, EA has not responded officially to this, but the artwork’s defects are a common occurrence with AI. Because there are very few reference photographs and datasets available for the AI to utilize, hands are notoriously hard for AI systems to recreate. As you can see below, both of Valkyrie’s fingers are twisted in the promotional image for her appearance as Yuffie in Final Fantasy 7. Her right hand appears to be melting, which is a fairly typical issue with AI art when it attempts to combine elements from its source material. The two straps that span her chest are also dissolving.
The second piece of EA advertising imagery that caught people’s attention was the different Yuffie outfit. This time, we get to witness Wattson’s outfit from Apex Legends, which obviously takes inspiration from Yuffie from Final Fantasy. One of the playable characters in the Final Fantasy Remake DLC is Yuffie. She dons a fairly cryptic cloak with a Mog motif during the first hour or two of the game (see photo below). Fans of Final Fantasy who have been following the series for a long time will recognize Mogs well. When it came to replicating it, an AI might be pardoned for being confused by the allusion.
Furthermore, the “Mog” on her sleeve appears to be an AI-generated misunderstanding rather than a human creation. In addition, Wattson’s bag, which has a Final Fantasy motif, contains USB connections and the previously stated melting AI look.
The AI art by Apex Legends is a callout for a larger trend
The response to the suggestion that AI be used to produce the Apex advertising graphics is not new. This callout is a part of a larger trend in which huge businesses are accused of using artificial intelligence art into their marketing efforts. In addition to Apex Legends, Magic: The Gathering from Wizards of the Coast and Wacom has garnered interest. Although Wizards of the Coast did first respond on January 4th, claiming that it was AI:
“We understand confusion by fans given the style being different than card art, but we stand by our previous statement. This art was created by humans and not AI.”
Later, they released a statement admitting that they had been mistaken and that “AI components” had indeed been used:
“Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI. 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.”
