I won’t mention which game and creator this is (a game on itchio), as I don’t want witch hunt here. It’s an indie dev after all. If you saw the post "I watched an artist evolve from producing rough art to delivering elite, top-tier artwork” with NSFW content (the one with oversized boobies), then you know what I mean.
What makes me sad and angry is, that I pointed out it looks like Ai was involved in the art creation. The author of the post replied that only background and 10% of the art was created with Ai, and that the game is 50 hours long. Feels very much like it was the developer himself? After I replied with this is problematic, because this was explained only after I mentioned it. There was no Ai mentioned in the itchio page or the post.
What followed was, the post got deleted. I reached out to the Lemmy user and asked in a private message why it was deleted. Shortly after then the Lemmy account are got deleted too.
What to make out of this? I was not toxic in anyway and didn’t saw any toxic comments from others. I didn’t want an indie developer to disappear, if the work is honest and the game is fun. Just don’t hide things. How should a situation like these be handled in the future?
I memorized Shakespeare Sonnet 68 in high school, it’s basically about how a people without powder or wigs made out of dead people’s hair are much more interesting and beautiful for showing their age. It’s never been more relevant than here:
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty liv’d and died as flowers do now,
Before the bastard signs of fair were borne,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay.
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another’s green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.