While it’s unlikely we will see any of these games mentioned below in our list of the best PS5 games, their presence on the PS Store has us concerned. If Sony allows these games with AI-generated art to run rampant on the PS Store, we could be facing a similar situation to all paid platinum crisis from a few years back.
AI-generated art is sneaking its way onto the PS5 and PS4 PS Store
If you’re unfamiliar with AI-generated art, you should know that it’s art that is conjured up through inputting prompts — like “supermarket,” “food,” “person,” etc. — into a piece of software that then generates an image within a couple of seconds. Usually, these pieces of art come out somewhat abnormal and have an uncanny valley feel to them as the machine draws upon various sources to approximate your request.Supermarket Shopping Simulator
You can detect that abnormal feeling in the AI-generated art used for many PS5 games lately. For example, check out the cover for Supermarket Shopping Simulator (embedded above). You might notice that there is something not quite right with the man’s legs as they are somehow both inside and in front of the shopping cart. He seems to be holding the cart behind him as he pushes it? Also, what the hell is going on with the wheels on that shopping cart?
Now, I will admit when it comes to AI art, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Both Fridge Escape and Heavenly Impact (embedded below) appear to use AI-generated art and their covers look pretty darn respectable all things considered. Sure, in the Fridge Escape image the cooker, the floor, and the sandwich all look a little off. Still, it’s all way less noticeable than the Supermarket Shopping Simulator one.
When it comes to AI art, they all tend to share similarities, be it looking the same or just being a little off. In the case of the images above, the more you look at them, the more you’ll spot oddities. It may be that the structures in the background make little sense, objects merge into other objects, items are placed in the most bizarre locations, and characters have inhuman-like features.
There are also games like Football 2024 Journey (the final image of the three above) that appear to use AI art for their PS Store image and also in the PS5 game itself. The game is a card game and sees you attempting to match two of the same cards to make pairs. So, what you can expect from this title is that you’ll be matching cards over an AI-generated football background. Exhilarating.
However, games like Beneath the Earth Backrooms, Poopy Time, and Cazzarion Portal Pilot don’t look to use this AI art for their artwork, but instead for their trophy images. One of my favorite images belongs to Beneath the Earth Backrooms for the silver trophy ‘First wall run’ which looks to have a naked man in the style of the manga Attack on Titan. I have no idea how it fits into the game (it doesn’t), but I love it.
In regards to Cazzarion Portal Pilot, we can see a switch-up with the trophy art if we look at older games from this developer. Looking at past releases like Cazzarion Star Collector, we can see that the trophy art used to be screen grabs from the game itself. However, now we have a lot of planes that merge into crowds of people. Yeah, something isn’t quite right there.
When it comes to AI art there is something I just don’t like. A lot of this stuff just ends up looking the same in some ways. I mean if we just look at all of the images above or the trophies in these games, everything has a similar air to it. Also, just mixing in the fact there are so many flaws with these AI art images, I can’t help but hope we don’t start seeing an influx of them on the PS Store.
Have you guys spotted any AI-generated art on the PS Store? What do you think about it? Hoping that none of these games infiltrate our list of the best PS4 games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
