Blue Archive producer Yongha Kim says careless generative AI use is lowering creative quality and fueling player distrust.
Kim’s comments follow a year in which AI has become one of the most divisive issues in games. In late 2025, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had a game award revoked amid scrutiny over AI involvement, while Larian Studios opened 2026 by publicly ruling out AI for concept art, citing the risk of immediate player backlash.
Other studios are choosing a middle ground. Cygames, best known for Umamusume, established a dedicated AI studio to develop “safe and secure” in-house models in January 2026, which just goes to show how differently developers are approaching the technology as player scrutiny continues to intensify.
Blue Archive producer discusses “AI slop” concerns
In a GameMeca interview, Blue Archive producer Yongha Kim said reckless generative AI use creates “AI slop” that harms trust.
Kim said the current backlash around AI is a predictable response to declining quality, not a misunderstanding of the technology. “First, we have the issue of AI slop, when reckless use of generative AI lowers the quality of the output,” he explained.
To illustrate the point, Kim used a blunt comparison. “Even if the packaging looks appealing, if the actual amount of snacks inside it was reduced and the bag was filled with air, of course the consumers would react negatively,” he said. For Kim, AI-generated content often creates a gap between appearance and substance.
He added that this reaction is even stronger in niche and subculture-driven genres, where players expect a clear sense of creative authorship. Kim described current transformer and diffusion-based models as “merely simulators,” and argued that they lack intent or personality. “Can the creator’s authenticity really be incorporated into that?” he questioned.
Despite being critical of AI, Kim admitted that Nexon Games’ IO division, which is responsible for Blue Archive, also uses AI itself. According to him, its role is to support developers through speech synthesis, voice recognition, and reducing repetitive work.
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