Asset Flips, AI Slops, and Exit 8-likes
Even before AI slops became a known issue for wider internet, I believe the gamers saw it firsthand how a new tool, in the name of asset libraries, can be easily abused. These days, most developers use a game engine such as Unity, and with it, they use purchasable assets that would have been needed at least AAA game budgets to create. To reiterate my take on the asset flips and AI slops as a whole: it’s not an issue if it’s used to pursue one’s creative goal.
Let’s return to The Exit 8 with the new criteria. I do not know how much of the game is actually just an asset sold from store or generated via AI. However, gamers and reviewers alike can attest to their experience of it being eerily similar to Japanese subway stations — not one in particular, but the general atmosphere. And that is the aim of the game as well; wandering aimlessly through what can only be loosely described as looped Japanese subways.
The fundamental issue behind asset flips and AI slops is its lack of theme, or the developers’ vision. If you want to create your own Exit 8-like, you still need to study the environment the playable character will wander in. And for this very reason, I had to call out on the abuse of AI in Who’s at the door? I do not believe the game delivers the old Korean apartment of the 1990. Assets and AIs can fill in the room with Asian looking decorations, but ultimately, from where I stand, this is yet another form of benign orientalism; it looks foreign and exotic to the eyes of who haven’t seen Korea, but Korean themselves may find it difficult to believe it is Korean either.
During the days of the asset flips, I believe it was harder to critique a game when it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. In this day and age, it is a commonly held belief that AI-generated contents aren’t automatically original unless it is used specifically for the artist’s goal. The same rule applies to asset flips. For example, games like Stellaris openly use AI-generated voice work to create talkative NPCs. The actual script is still made in-house by the actual people, but instead of bringing in the voice actor every time, they pay royalties to the original voice actor for the lines spoken in their AI-generated voice. The goal was clear for them.
Exit 8-likes being still an indie subgenre, I believe usage of assets and AIs will only increase. And it isn’t necessarily bad. It can help to build the Exit 8’s characteristic eeriness. But we also know what happened to all the Backroom games. It started with eerie office hallways, and now we are being served everything AI-generated, from the layout, the monsters, even the cover art is often AI-generated. I understand that there is the desire to let it all slide as these games are often priced at $0.99 to $4.99. But remember: Five Nights at Freddy’s cost mere $4.99, and there will be buyers’ remorse for an asset flip or an AI slop should it be sold at the same price point.