'Our artists draw thousands of sketches': Palworld's CEO, seemingly exhausted by AI art accusations, once more tries to put them to bed

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(Image credit: Pocketpair)

Palworld early access

Still, part of that initial hullabaloo involved anger over Palworld’s pals—who were, if you listened to the peanut gallery, eitherdirect rip-offs of Pokémonor AI-generated slop. As I mentioned back in January, though, these were mostly based onsheer vibesand Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe beingreally excited about AI pokemonback in 2021 (which, in fairness, is pretty suspicious—but raised eyebrows aren’t evidence).

“Palworld is often accused of using generative AI, but in reality, we do not use it. Our artists draw thousands of sketches. (The feature) introduces part of our Pal creation process, so anyone interested should have a look!”

パルワールドを大々的に特集頂いたCGWORLDの8月号は、今日発売です！パルワールドは生成AIを利用していると叩かれている事が多いですが、実際には使用していません。数千枚近くのラフ画をアーティストが描いています。パルの制作過程も一部紹介したので、興味がある方は是非ご覧下さい！ https://t.co/jtilGQgCl5July 10, 2024

As if to point and say ‘look, we do concept art, promise!’ Mizobe also shared a link to a snippet from the latest issue ofCGWORLD magazine, which goes into the development of the pals featured in the base game. In it, several work-in-progress sketches are shared, as seen below.

(Image credit: CGWORLD Magazine / Pocketpair)

A preview image from CGWORLD magazine, displaying several concept art images of various pals.

Yeah, fair play. That’s definitely concept art.

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In other words, sometimes the curtains are just blue—and sometimes a human concept artist just looked at Mega Mewtwo Y and said"yeah, I bet if I just change a few things, that’ll be fine". All art is derivative, sometimesveryderivative, and it’s fair to criticise that when it goes too far. But muddying the pool based on a gut feeling is only going to make it harder to spot genuinely crummy uses of the tech. At least Palworld never told me todrink my own wee.

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