The ride-sharing “Stimulator” was revealed almost two weeks ago in a short trailer showcasing its gig economy driving simulation satire. But most people probably didn’t find out until its former head writer accused publisher Saber Interactive of replacing it with ChatGPT “midway through development.” Saber Interactive continued to deny that claim, but now its CEO Matthew Karch has confirmed that he would have done so “in hindsight.” He criticized the former Saber developer while promoting AI in a new personal statement over the controversy admitting generative AI is used in the game. Earlier this week, narrative designer Stella Sacco, who was Saber Interactive’s lead writer on Stuntman Hollywood and other games through 2024, claimed that Saber had replaced her with generative AI tools and was not disclosing the plagiarism technology’s involvement in development on the Steam Rideshare “Stimulator” page. Sacco added that the decision to implement AI came from Sabre, the game’s publisher, and not Unigine, its developer. Saber Interactive later responded in a statement to PC Gamer. “Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any AI writers for Rideshare or any other game,” a company representative said. However, they did confirm that generative AI was being used for the game’s previously undisclosed “free ride” mode. “The game will also feature an experimental free ride mode that necessarily incorporates AI since the number of passengers in the game is infinite,” the spokesperson added. Sacco responded to the response by doubling down. “I was there, and my job was to write the game, and then it wasn’t once Matt Karch decided that using ChatGPT would be great advertising for the game,” he told PC Gamer. Sacco proceeded to elaborate on social media: “My boss, admittedly, argued over and over again with the C-level who pushed the AI: ‘we already have Stella and she’s fun and she’s good at this, she’s done live games before so live ops aren’t a problem,’ etc., but the lawsuit insisted that “players love new technology,” so using AI would be ‘great marketing.'” Karch has now weighed in directly on the matter in a new statement to This Week In Video Games. Saber’s CEO personally attacked the former Saber developer for being replaced by “someone more talented,” but did not deny that generative AI is involved in “certain parts of the game,” which will eventually be revealed on Rideshare’s Steam page. “Estela, who?” Karch’s statement to TWIVG began. “I had to ask Claude because I’ve never talked to her or seen her. We’ve already said that we’re using AI for certain parts of the game and we’ll update the Steam page once we’ve finalized the feature set.” He continued: Let me clarify that the entire script of the story, if it won an award, would go to someone who could go up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed it before we were ready. We view our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower-priced title, as an advantage to consumers. As for Stella, she was replaced by someone more talented and fired for various reasons a few months later. From what I can gather, she enjoys controversy even more than I do. Frankly, in retrospect, I would have loved to replace it with AI. At least we’d be dealing with someone programmed to be honest. Sacco went on to claim that Karch was “attacking” because he didn’t want people to know the extent to which AI was used in the game. “Everything I said was true,” he added. “There’s more truth here: That statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company, and combined with the use of AI will do far more damage to Saber’s reputation than it ever could. This rant will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand.” The controversy, and how Karch has handled it, certainly hasn’t helped Saber on the Rideshare Steam page. An otherwise quiet discussion section is now filled with people arguing about the use of AI in certain aspects of the game and not disclosing it in the Valve store. The company leaves it up to studios and publishers to be honest about how much genAI is used in their games and how. For now, Rideshare will be known as the game that initially hid its use of AI from the people who wishlisted it, and whose publisher decided to attack the person who reported that.
