Video Game Developers That Have Spoken Out Against AI

19 Jan, 2026

Updated 2/9/26, adding Eric Barone. Also added more information about Japanese developers.

In my last blog, I listed every video game studio that are either actively using, promised to use in the future, or are exploring the possibility of using genAI to “help” make games. It was a long list, full of major companies, mid-sized studios, and tiny indies alike.

To cleanse our palettes, I want to highlight the studios and individuals that have spoken out against the use of AI, both in game development and in general. We need to give them the credit they're due for taking what is (but shouldn’t be) a brave stand.

Studios and Individuals That Have Spoken Against Using GenAI

Eric Barone
Stardew Valley, The Haunted Chocolatier

In a February 2026 interview with IGN, Barone stated that he is still working on both Stardew Valley and The Haunted Chocolatier, before saying that he would "never" use generative AI.

"I'm interested in ways to make the game more just infinitely replayable without the use of AI. That's never going to happen."

Ron Gilbert
Maniac Mansion, Thimbleweed Park, Death by Scrolling

Ron Gilbert has been critical of AI multiple times on Mastodon. His display name is “Ron Giblert (100% AI Free). He made this post in June 2025:

“I watched a YouTube video of someone using Vibe coding to make a game with AI. 45 mins in and it was running but spewing out error after error. The presenter finally went in an fixed the errors by hand requiring a lot of time and knowledge. I watched the whole thing like someone staring at a traffic accident.”

He also tooted this in November 2025:

“AI will destroy the world, not in the way it did in Terminator, but by a million paper cuts.”

Grundislave Games
Rosewater, Lamplight City

Rosewater lists a seal on its Steam page that states that no AI was used in any part of the creation of the game. Grundislave creator and lead developer Francisco Gonzalez has also stated on social media that he does not use genAI.

Hooded Horse
Dark Wood, Battle Brothers, Endless Legend 2

Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender has come out stronger against AI than anyone else in gaming. In an interview with Kotaku, he had this to say:

“I fucking hate gen AI art and it has made my life more difficult in many ways…suddenly it 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.'”

The whole interview is fantastic, and Bender is one of the few people in the games industry who seems to talk with any sense on the subject. I suggest you read the whole thing, but here’s another great quote.

“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? 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.”

Rami Ismail
Nuclear Throne, Ridiculous Fishing

Rami Ismail frequently posts about his general disdain for genAI on his BlueSky account. Look, I’m working with what I’ve got here, okay?

Kaizen Game Works
Promise Mascot Agency, Paradise Killer

Kaizen Game Works’ official BlueSky page has stated that no genAI was used to create either of their games, and implied that it will not be used in the future. Art director Rachel Noy also frequently re-posts anti-AI posts on her BlueSky.

Kaizen released an art book for the actual best game of 2025, Promise Mascot Agency, which inadvertently serves as a great example of why genAI can never create art. I wrote a blog about it, if you’re interested. I know you’re not, but I figured I'd throw it in here anyway.

Kinetic Publishing
Phasmophobia

The founder of Kinetic Games, Daniel Knight, started a new publishing house in January 2026 called Kinetic Publishing. In the announcement, they stated they wanted to be a “champion” of indie games and that they would not accept any games using AI generated assets, or any web-3 or blockchain games.

Nintendo
Playing Cards, Ultra Hand, N&B Block

Nintendo is the only major video game studio to speak against AI. In a Q&A with investors in July 2024, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa addressed a question about the use of genAI in games. In part, he had this to say:

“Generative AI, which has been a hot topic in recent years, can be more creative, but we also recognize that it has issues with intellectual property rights. We have decades of know-how in creating optimal gaming experiences for our customers, and while we remain flexible in responding to technological developments, we hope to continue to deliver value that is unique to us and cannot be achieved through technology alone.”

Not the most forceful dismissal of AI you’ll ever hear, but to my ear, a dismissal nonetheless.

Shigeru Miyamoto also said that the company “isn’t interested” in AI, adding:

“It might seem like we are just going the opposite direction for the sake of going in the opposite direction, but it really is trying to find what makes Nintendo special. There is a lot of talk about A.I., for example. When that happens, everyone starts to go in the same direction, but that is where Nintendo would rather go in a different direction.”

PocketPair
Palworld, Craftopia

How ironic these two companies have both spoken out against genAI. Especially PocketPair, who have been accused many times of ripping off Pokemon in creating Palworld. But to their credit, they have explicitly spoken against the use of any AI in the creation of games.

CEO Takuro Mizobe said on social media that “Palworld is often accused of using generative AI, but in reality, we do not use it.” He also said that “our artists draw thousands of sketches,” and shared a video of an artist creating a Poke—I mean, a Pal.

Further, in an October 2025 interview with Game Developer, Communications Director and Publishing Manager John Buckley said “We don’t believe in it [AI].”

“If you're big on AI stuff or your game is Web3 or uses NFTs, there are lots of publishers out there [who'll talk to you], but we’re not the right partner for that. I think over the next two or three years we're going to get into this weird era—and you can see it slowly happening now on Steam—of really low-quality, AI-made games.”

Polygon Treehouse
Mythwrecked, Roki

Co-founder and Creative Director of Polygon Treehouse stated on BlueSky that “generative technologies are trained on existing works by human artists who have not given their permission, or been compensated, for their work being utilised. Essentially their work has been stolen.”

Indeed, he’s the one who came up with the “No AI” seal many developers on Steam (such as Grundislave) display on their store pages.

Strange Scaffold
El Paso: Elsewhere, I Am Your Beast, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator

Strange Scaffold founder and Lead Developer Xalavier Nelson Jr. stated on BlueSky that they do not use genAI in any of their games. He pointed to an article in which the CEO of Nexon said that “every game company is now using AI” and replied by saying “get outta here with this normalization bullshit.”

Tim Schafer
Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Psychonauts,

Tim Schafer spoke out against AI in 2023. In an interview with Twitch streamer Cressup (via PCGamer), he said that while he found the basis of the technology interesting from a technical standpoint, he hated its output. In part, he said he “never read anything that was meaningful or important or worthwhile from AI.” He added:

“To me, art is about making a connection between people. [The artist] exposes themselves to some sort of intuitive expression that you as a viewer or player or listener takes in. And you're like: oh my gosh, they feel like I feel, or they made me feel this other thing I couldn't know I could feel. I just can't imagine the value of having that with a computer.”

Schafer is on this list and not his company, Double Fine, because they’re owned by Xbox. Xbox (and Microsoft) are major proponents of genAI. Also, Schafer won’t be at Double Fine forever. If Xbox demands Double Fine use genAI to make a game, will Schafer or whoever leads the studio in the future be able to say no? QA testers at Respawn have expressed anger at being forced by EA execs to use AI tools, so there is a precedent for publishers forcing their studios to use AI.

Observations

This was a difficult list to put together. Developers who speak out against AI don’t get articles written about them. Devs with anti-AI sentiments share them on social media, and as someone who doesn’t use social media (except occasionally browsing Mastodon), it’s difficult to find and verify this information. That’s why I’m not calling this a definitive list. There are doubtless dozens of more studios and individuals who have spoken against genAI in gaming, I simply can’t find them.

This is especially true for studios that are located in non-English speaking countries. I wrote in my list of all the studios that do use AI about how every major East Asian studio (except Nintendo) are in favor of AI. I can’t find any developers in Japan, Korea, or China speaking out against AI, because I don’t speak Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. As I said, articles don’t get written about studios speaking out against AI, so there could be dozens of developers from the region railing against AI on Weibo or Misskey that I have no way of knowing about.

This is backed up by a new survey by the Freelance League of Japan in early February 2026 (via Automaton). Conducted by a group of nearly 25,000 game developers in Japan, 89% considered generative AI a "serious threat" to their livelihood.

Also, indie devs, can we stop posting literally everything on Twitter and BlueSky, please? At least post some stuff on your own website once in a while.

I suppose we should address the elephant in the room. Its entirely possible developers could lie about not using or liking AI. It will be less and less obvious when genAI is used as it gets better at mimicking real art. It’s already impossible to tell if a game was programmed with AI. There have always been buggy games riddled with problems, so that alone can’t be an indicator.

All we can do is take a developer on their word, because if they are lying about not using AI, the backlash will be severe. We’ve already seen that with the Indie Game Awards taking two awards away from Sandfall Interactive after they lied about not using AI.

Final Thoughts

Putting this list together was even more depressing than the list of studios that do use AI. I was hoping for more studios, more indies in particular, to take a stand. I thought I’d be able to include devs like Supergiant, Team Cherry, and Toby Fox here, but they have remained eerily silent on the use of AI. Even Lucas Pope said he’s considering using genAI in his next game.

The AI bubble is going to pop, sooner than later, and with how invested the video game industry is in it on every single level, I’m afraid we’re heading towards another video game crash. Only this time, it won’t just affect North America. This is not going to end well for the video game industry, and I worry even those that don’t use AI will be dragged down too.

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