Ex-Square Enix suit says you can whine all you like, but 'Gen Z loves AI slop' and everyone and their grandma is already using it

Dismayed by the profusion of AI-generated slop in videogames? No, you aren't. Or if you are, then you aren't representative of the broad gaming audience. That's my takeaway from recent remarks by Jacob Navok, former director of business at Square Enix and current CEO at Genvid—a media company specialising in "a unique mix of a streaming show and video game"—on X (via GamesRadar).

Navok reckons that, for as much as people like me bang on about AI being the labour-sucking death of art, "it appears consumers generally do not care" when the tech manifests in their games. To be fair, he's got receipts. Navok summons the recent examples of Arc Raiders and the Roblox game Steal a Brainrot to back up his points. Arc Raiders, of course, makes prominent use of AI voices, which did little to stop it peaking at 480,000 concurrent players last weekend.

Steal a Brainrot, meanwhile, "had 30m concurrents or approximately 80x the ARC Raiders concurrents," says Navok, "and is named after/based on AI slop characters. (All the brainrots are just 3D models of AI slop.)

"Gen Z loves AI slop, does not care. The upcoming generation of gamers are Bane in Dark Knight Rises saying, 'You merely adopted the slop, I was born in it,'" continues Navok. And besides, he reckons all sorts of studios are already using it, some more quietly than others. "Activision isn't shying away from AI, neither is ARC Raiders. Tipping point has been reached.

"In-game art and voices are merely the tip of the spear. Many studios I know are using AI generation in the concept phase, and many more are using Claude for code." Sooner rather than later, "it will be hard to find a non-indie title that isn't using Claude for code," says Navok, and if that doesn't irritate you because it's not gen-AI art or writing, well, that just "shows that a lot of AI sentiment is being driven by emotion rather than logic."

Which, look, I just don't know that I buy that, chief. I think it's telling that the most full-throated defences (and the most timid equivocations) around AI come from C-suites. Meanwhile, actual workers—artists, writers, and so on—are the ones leading the charge against it. It's a labour issue wrapped in an artistic one, and I think attempts like this—by execs trying to pitch the pivot to AI as inevitable—are more about furthering the disempowerment of the workforce than they are about anything else.

Ultimately, what will determine the shape and extent of AI use in videogames probably isn't whether consumers will swallow it, but whether workers are organised enough to stop it in its tracks.