It was so nice of WotC to drop another, slightly more thorough apology for the AI art in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. They didn’t really tell us anything new. They don’t seem terribly remorseful. Elsewhere on the internet, their shills are already busy trying to push this book onto the public and minimize the damage even further.
At this point, Bigby’s Forceful Fist isn’t convincing me I should buy this book. Quite honestly, it might be the greatest official 5E book ever written, but I won’t know because I’ll never buy a physical copy. I’m pretty angry with Wizards of the Coast and the hits just keep on coming.
It’s more like Bigby’s Wallet Grabbing Hand or something.
Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.
Look, I’m not saying no one should buy this book. Do as you wish. (It’s the internet, after all.) All I’m saying is, after this year’s WotC trash fire, they’d have to practically give me a copy of this thing. I mean, they do it for all their shills. I would love to be special for a change, but they won’t even dignify me with a lousy f🦆king response to all of my emails.
I love physical books. Most of the time, I won’t purchase a PDF unless I can get a dead tree version, too. WotC is trying so hard to push its “undermonetized player base” into its online walled garden that they’re coming up with every excuse they can to get away from print. This Glorious Giant Flub was just one more nail in the coffin. They’re changing the electronic copies to update the art with non-AI art. Uh, yeah. Still sounds like a cash grab to me.
Personally, I’d be more than a little upset if I bought the stupid collector’s cover edition of this book. I think the AI art really cheapens the whole experience. I’m still not buying into any of the weak excuses given for how and why this was passed by so many oblivious editors and art directors. Nothing in this latest public statement really makes me want to buy the book. Nothing about this book exactly screams “quality TTRPG product” at me.
Feel free to read the article, but there’s nothing convincing to me.
Here’s the link to the article where the screenshot was taken. I see their newly seated Director of Crisis Response Manager (Guy in charge of covering their arses,) is really earning that big old salary. Do you know what’s better than needing a crisis manager? Not having quarterly meltdowns in the first place.
Do you know who’s in charge of stopping these oopsie moments before they get into print? Editors and the art team. They still claim the other books have been thoroughly checked and WotC is allegedly going to be diligent about not using AI going forward (*cough* until it happens again *cough. *) I really think WotC is just desperately trying to milk the D&D community for as much money as they can until the 2024 5E revision drops. I believe it’s all they care about.
It went right under their noses because they’ve worked with this artist for years.
They had it in front of them for over a year and this went by unnoticed. No, don’t fire the artist. But they didn’t notice anything had changed about his approach or art style? Don’t blame the artist, but WotC- y’all need to have a chat with your editors. Seriously, how do these things keep happening?
Hey, WotC- my offer to come be one of your many brilliant editors still stands. I’ll make it worth your while…
Seriously. “Well, there weren’t any guidelines yet, so it must just be okay.” is an awful excuse. WotC has highly paid staff that are supposed to be on top of these things. Editors get paid a lot of money and someone should have been more proactive when it came to the AI art issue. Yeah, the artist should have known better, but there was no guideline in place yet. I’m sorry. Did the artist not sign an agreement not to compete against Hasbro in the NFT market?
Why do we have to wait until there’s a major debacle of some kind for WorC to set a guideline? Are they that oblivious to the rest of the industry, social media, and the game itself that they don’t see some of these issues coming? #Hadozee was totally preventable. The Half Race controversy was totally preventable. The AI art thing has been up in front of the public since before Bigby’s went to print. WotC has a lot of highly paid staff who just don’t pay attention as far as I can tell.
If WotC was as serious about the game of Dungeons & Dragons as they are about pimping the brand, their official books wouldn’t need YouTube shills or heaps of excuses. Every time a consumer gives them so much as a dime for any officially licensed merch, we’re feeding the stupidity that is the brand and the company.
Does anyone really doubt AI Dungeon Masters aren’t coming at this point?
There are broader ramifications to this whole AI art debacle. They were very specific about the art and artists. Notice they didn’t mention writers or DMs? Sorry, but after all we’ve been through this year, I can’t bring myself to trust anything WotC says or does.
All of the products prior to the 2024 5E “revision” should probably be viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism and mistrust. I think WotC figured out they announced the new non-new edition too soon and now they’re struggling desperately to keep the money train running. 2024 isn’t really looking like a banner year for WotC yet, either.
Just because they’re on the lookout for AI art, what’s to stop one of their writers from dropping a bunch of AI generated dookie into the next book? How are we going to know everyone on the VTT is a live human being and not a chat bot?
With the nauseating success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and the seemingly unstoppable hype plowing its way through YouTube thanks to the Content Creator’s Summit, it looks like yet another WotC flub up is going to be ignored as we all get sucked further into the 2024 Virtual Table Top release. I’m telling you, family, this new version of 5E is going to be a big push into their VTT and all of its microtransactions and subscriptions. D&D as we knew it is going to become little more than a MMORPG run by AI.
I think it’s disgusting where the game is headed. I’m sure the original creators and artists who’ve already passed are rolling over in their graves, or soon will be. Wizards of the Coast is no TSR and Jeremy Crawford is sure as Hell no Gary Gygax. The TTRPG of Dungeons & Dragons is literally dying in front of us and Artificial Intelligence is just helping it along.
We still have the power to say, “Enough is enough.”
I know I’m probably tilting at windmills on this one. Remember #StoptheSub? Or #DnDBeGone? What about #OpenDnD? Well, in our rush to go right back to 5E just like our Content Creator heroes have suggested, we seem to have forgotten our ability to send WotC a clear message. We can still vote with our dollars as we should have still been doing.
I truly wish I had 500K rabid fans following me on YouTube right now. I’m that tiny fraction of the D&D community who became “gladiatorial” back in April when I dared to suggest that Content Creators needed to use some damn discernment at that summit. I’m not trying to harass anyone in particular. We still have the same ability to send WotC a clear message every time one of these major PR stunts or “mistakes” happens. We’re just not doing it because the “right” people haven’t been telling the larger fanbase that WotC needs to shake up their staff again.
Some of us were literally calling for Cynthia Williams and Chris Cao to step down back in January. We seem to have forgotten that good old Chris Cocks (Yes that’s his actual last name.) at Hasbro brought on a bunch of people from Microsoft and Zynga. They don’t see a game where people share in an immersive storytelling experience or even some hardcore beer-n-pretzels gaming. All the WotC team truly seems to be about is turning D&D into a relatable brand video game for the mass market to dump more money into their pockets.
If I’m being honest, the writers, artists, and even editors would be better off seeking out jobs at Kobold Press, Paizo, Chaosium, Monte Cook, or any other smaller publisher and jumping ship now while they can. I’m sure the computer programmers and corporate goons at WotC will somehow get by without all of that pesky “gamer stuff” getting in their way from the TTRPG side of things. If we suddenly find out someone has used AI to write a bunch of flavor text? It’s going to get ugly.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m so disgusted with WotC right now. Thanks for being here. I love all of you even if we don’t always agree on everything. More to come on this story and Baldur’s Gate 3.
Jeff's Game Box 