Is AI Going To Ruin Board Games?


Alright, I might be beating a dead horse here but I want to talk about my thoughts on AI and board games as someone who runs a board game publishing company.

Now, at PickPocket, we stand pretty firmly against the use of generative AI in the creation of games. I think there are all kinds of different moral and ethical problems with AI, but for the sake of this post, I actually want to put those arguments aside. Because we’ve already seen in plenty of industries (including in board games) that AI is GOING to be used in products.

Instead, I want to take about why I think, in the long run, the concerns many people have about generative AI in games (and art more broadly) aren’t actually new problems.

I was recently watching a video by Hank Green in which he discussed the rising usage of AI in video content, and what really defines something as "slop". I think it’s a video well worth watching it it's entirety, but one point in particular stood out to me about what he argues makes a piece of content have value.

He says “As the ease of creating things increases, those things will become less novel and less valuable.” Basically, when people spend lower-effort to make pieces of content or art, those kinds of low effort content become more abundant which leads to society putting a higher value on higher-effort content. If human effort becomes more scarce, then we will begin to care about human-effort more.

I think this take is a spot on take and can apply to the arts more broadly. AI can make producing a passable game seem easier than ever, both for first-timers with limited budget and for larger, more established companies looking to cut operating costs.

But, when something becomes easy to make, it loses value. And when it comes to art, this isn’t a new problem. When you take artistic expression and apply capitalism to it, there will always be those who seek to exploit that art form for money with as little effort as possible. This was something people already did before AI. AI is just another tool for those same people to do the same thing. How can I make a product that I can sell for money while spending as little money/effort as possible on the creation of that product?

AI is a new tool, but the problems people are concerned about with AI (especially in the creation of games) is not a new problem. And I really don’t see that problem being exacerbated much more in the long run because of how much I’ve already seen gamers care about the PEOPLE making their games and I think as the usage of AI increases,  that will just make us care more about the people and process behind the games we buy.

I want to reiterate, we do not use generative AI at PickPocket. Everything we do is driven by human creativity. We have an awesome team of passionate people who work incredibly hard to make great games and we will continue to support and expand that team as long as we are able.

What do you think? Are you worried about the impact of generative AI on board games or on art in general?

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Photo Credit: instagram.com/alexkrokus