that's exactly it. People who have ADHD, people who are bipolar, folks with autism who are prone to laser focus on their hobbies even at the expense of their financial solvency - these games and platforms are designed specifically to exploit and predate on us. They aren't selling an earnestly crafted service at a fair price. They are manipulating the psyche of a vulnerable individual to con them out of as much of their time and money as possible and these games are run as nothing more or less than immersive casinos. I long for the days of the up-front monthly subscription. what was ever wrong with that model? wasn't it already profitable?
The fact that riot is pushing this new Exalted skins that costs $250 is insane + them removing the reroll skins and free Hextech chests rewards is pure regression sad to see them becoming even more greedy.
@@ColtJustColt You're still gonna be able to reroll skin shards but you will not be getting free chests anymore from earning S with a character. Tokens will no longer exist from the BP and orbs.
They make zero profits on Arcane show, musics, esports, cinematics. Same thing for Valorant. They still keep LoR even if nobody plays it. So why cant they price their cosmetics however they want in their free games? Profits comes only from their ingame cosmetics. But from entertainment? Zero.
@@GameManCZ2000 Let them be bro, people now a days just cant shut up. All of them including me have something to say even in the smallest of things. Maybe its just human behavior but damnn I just hate how everyone just complains and fucking complains I'm just sick of it.
@@GameManCZ2000Except they do get profits from Arcane. I may not know much about business personally but I am 100% sure, that to be on Netflix you have to have an agreement with Netflix and there's gains of profit for your series being watched, similarly to RUclips because otherwise who the hell would want to put their series in Netflix if it wasnt the case. If there was no profit, who would want to spend 250m$ on a series only to give it for free to a streaming platform where the platform gets profit and you the creator get nothing ? nonsense
@@ImRaiz0league is slowly became hot garbage LOL they're selling a 250$skin that has a end game nexus destruction victory/defeat that's not including with the skin.... For like 70$ more btw
@@bakuzma8233 Ye I agree with the jinx exalted one it aint even that good tbh. I'd argue the Jhin and Faker's Ahri though, it has great effects. Well they can do what ever they want, its a free game so what can we do
Always remember: Riot games' (senior Principal Technical Artist) job posting/description literally states that they use AI in asset creation for: "asset generation, procedural content creation, texture generation, and animation" and more. They just don't want the negative press
Riot just hides behind "It's upper management!" A tactic that gets them away from accountability, And everyone will weirdly defend it too. . . While also ignoring that Riot has been caught so many times doing A.i Sketchy stuff the most notable example was that season start video not too long ago that was 100% A.I Generated.
@@LostSoul-TeemoMain The Brazilian anniversary video a year or so ago was completely Ai. It goes to show how little they cared about the Brazilian server that they couldn't even bother to make a proper video. Riot was one of the first of the big gaming companies to use Ai when Ai was first becoming a thing. And Riot has shown time and time again they are more than happy to cut corners and use Ai when possible. I wouldn't believe a single thing Riot says period, about using Ai or just anything in general. Riot is a billion dollar company they have no incentive to EVER tell the truth. Just assume Riot is lying because no big company ever speaks the truth.
@@TheRandomLetsplays Which is crazy when you stop to think about how the Brazilian competitive league scene was and still is quite healthy, people here love the game despite its flaws.
Partially because all you idiots don't understand AI, nor the content production pipeline, nor the value in automating routine tasks so that the artists can actually focus on creating stuff that matters. Cracks me up that teenagers who have never had a job, let alone run a business, think they know everything about asset production.
@@OberynTheRedViper Those are a lot of assumptions with very little substance. Ideating and illustrating emotes is not a "routine task". Creative processes can by very nature, not be routine, while AI, by its code and funcionality, not be creative. I would suggest reading up on Diffusion Models funczionality and to actually do some creative work to understand how both work. Additionaly, i would suggest not responding soley based on emotion, as it makes you lash out in comments that make you look like an idiot.
Every time I see companies getting massive backlash for using AI, it brings some relief to know that many people still prefer their media to be created by humans instead of generated by a computer.
@@SammysapphiraI hope you realize you're letting the whole world know you don't know a thing about animation and have very bad attention to detail when you watch something
man twitter is the most vile cesspool of horrible people in the world, someone mispornounce a fictional character's name and they get death threats, i dont understand how that ,amy people are just bad like that and even less why still so many people use that trash excuse of social media
With regards to the ezreal skins, this exact same thing was done with the new viktor and hwei icons and they were basically identical in facial structure. Quite sad to see how riot have become more okay with just reusing old things, even when its a damn VGU and not even the same champ.
Reusing things doesn’t always immediately equate to it being bad. Always making new original stuff is good in general, but very expensive, time consuming and tiring. It’s just a tradeoff that Riot has to take into account that us outsiders don’t see. So do take that into consideration before judging anything just because it is not original
@OffisianO Look at people outside. You will rarely witness two matching faces. A lot of people don't like the new Viktor look because he doesn't have any identity. He's looking like a korean idol with a fake face and it's just not appealing at all. Now if riot did use Hwei to create Viktor, I'm not surprised that nobody likes him anymore. You may not have an issue with that for now, but when you'll have these everywhere you will understand why it is problematic. Also to answer your question, try typing "Portrait"' and watch artist sketbooks. There are thousands of drawings and you won't ever find one face matching another UNLESS it is the same character. Try drawing yourself and doing two similar faces with slighty different angle. Then you might understand how hard it is to keep the same facial trait and not make it something completely different.
@@thienhuynh7962 it's very difficult to see this from riot's POV when it's a VGU, this is something you should be heavily prioritising, especially it being to do with arcane. They have dropped the ball hard on this VGU and say they don't have the resources but then come out with another $250 skin that doesn't need to be coming out this soon. Its clear they are trying to get as much money as they can out of whales instead of actually putting time and effort into making the game better and improving the game for the players who have been playing for all this time.
@@taxman_x he said whitey league. Is your reading comprehension on vacation? What’s with this new zoomer slop sentence “what do you mean?” Being spammed all over? Quit the passive aggressive wormy language and just say what you mean from jump.
As an artist myself: I didn't even notice the Samira hand was wrong until someone pointed it out. I think it's absolutely a mistake, one that's super easy to miss especially on thumbnails like that as they aren't as immensely looked at compared to other forms like splashart.
I'm not much of an artist, but I've also drawn hands with six fingers. One time it was followed by a loud gasp by someone looking over my shoulder, it was quite embarrassing.
It's disappointing to see that recently, Riot Games has shifted its eyes to money, unlike before where they were still doing fine or great even without or at least minimal greed.
@@kirby9427 This is misinformation people keep saying Arcane cost them a lot of money when Netflix probably paid for a good portion of it.
Месяц назад+80
They kicked a huge amount of people out of the company, yet, they are still releasing the same amount of skins and champs. that's not possible unless if: 1- employees work extra hours 2- employees take work to their houses 3- employees take existing skins and do some contour changes ( that's why we all feel the same on all skins and they look similar) and lastly 4- They use AI or EXPERIMENTING AI, as i'm sure in no time, you will see full skins made purely by AI ( that, if not using AI to create an entier champion)
You forgot something EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, a little less than a month ago, Riot was offering jobs for "Data Engineers", which are, in other words, to create REgenerative AI models with the art other artists made for Riot, right after 2 rounds of layoffs
I think most of these are just a result of rushed deadlines and little compensation to artist. If You have only a few days/weeks to draw an entirely new ezreal skin splash art in combination with a bunch of other splash art, you’re going to need to cut corners / quality control
Not sure if you are aware, but there is a screening process for like 4-5 different options chosen before a Splash even starts rendering production. The only similar thing is the face which could easily have happened organically. People need to dabble more in art. These allegations are ridiculous. And if near the end you notice it is similar, you are not redoing it. These Splashes take about a month to render by the artist. And sometimes changing something makes the composition no longer work. I work as an animator and have done my fair share of redrawing and it's not rare to get the same stuff from time to time because it just stylistically works best for that composition. This likely has nothing to do with QA and simply and an unfortunate reality of art and deadlines. If they had an infinite amount of time, sure, they can delay it all and redo everything. But they can't because their schedule is a biweekly release schedule. Does it suck? Yes. Is it a big deal? Not at all. I'd much rather complain about Jinx being a limited time skin rather than simply a super expensive one. THAT is predatory since it's a digital good that is tied to nothing but money (Victorious skins, for example, are rewards for accomplishment).
@@SiMeGamer Yeah most of these "allegations" read like people getting mad on artist's behalf, and therefore they don't know what is actually offensive and what is not
@@SiMeGamer "Not sure if you are aware, but there is a screening process for like 4-5 different options chosen before a Splash even starts rendering production." Yes, typically this is Riot's procedure with making splash arts. However, with recent layoffs, this is always subject to change. Less drafts to get skins out more quickly. It's possible.
@@SiMeGamer I'm not sure Riot Games (the company as a whole) has earned the benefit of the doubt, though. As unfortunate as that is for their staff, Riot just does not have the goodwill of its audience anymore. If this were, say, the first, or even tenth bad, anti-consumer, anti-artist thing they potentially could have done? Sure, I'd be hesitant to believe it. Too bad this is Riot Games, and that's not nearly true for this year alone. Considering their Principal Technical Artist job listing states that they use AI for "asset generation, procedural content creation, texture generation, and animation", I don't necessarily think these allegations are unfair or unwarranted, and certainly not ridiculous. Were they wrong this time? The Ezreal splash one is almost certainly a reach, but it's not exactly hard to get where people are coming from, either. I don't think it's bad that people are at least on high alert for shite business practices. I'm surprised Riot doesn't keep more receipts like the Samira icon on-hand if they truly cared about gaining some more of that goodwill back.
THIS. AI will at it's current pace never replace humans completly in their work. But they can help support them. i remember all to well watching a dyslexic minecraft streamer create a modpack and he used a AI as spelling controll for his code/text. He inmeditally got called out by someone in chat like "Ohhh he is abusing AI in his fucking mod pack imma tell this to the twitter birds" on which i said "You clearly don't know how to spell because you fucking failed the spelling on multiple fucking words, and you clearly rely on spelling control in all of your messages, because you dont even know how that shit works" Never saw that fucker in his chat again, and he didn't even get banned.
Yeah, the effects of the layoffs is showing to the point that I no longer trust Riot anymore, as I have moved on from the Runeterra lore. As always, thanks for the very informative news.
@@itsgonnabeokay9341 Why are you writing like everyone and their grandma know what the ATLA mistake is? For all you know, this is their first instance of what you're saying and it's a natural reaction to have. Dafuq?
As someone who spent a few thousand dollars in League in the past, I think I'm finally done. All the changes recently really pushed me away, the new way they're doing things is really disgusting. Every single time there's a change it's for the worse and it feels they're trying to trick you at every corner. I'll just take my spendings elsewhere.
Same here, I can't stand enshittification by billion dollar companies. And it's not like big, polished games aren't happening all around us. Maybe it's time to jump ship, we've been playing this shit game for a decade.
I’ve had my account since 2014 and accumulated about a few grand on a free game. I used to treat myself to a skin or something on my paydays or weekends. I used to keep up constantly with skin spotlights to see if any of my mains would get a skin. I’ve stopped really spending any kind of money on league and the skins coming out are just so bland and feel they could just fit in a few different skin lines. I feel the skins are losing a key identity to them and it’s getting hard to tell what champ the skin is even supposed to be for now. I suppose it’s a good thing to keep it away from greedy riot. Hopefully they learn :(
Regarding the AI voiceover, I wouldn't really rule the pronunciation for "Sivir" as incorrect. If anything, it's technically the correct pronunciation, considering that she is a descendant of Azir and the last part of his name is pronounced that way.
When you don't hear the champions name called very often, I can say I pronounced it "Siv-eer" as did a lot of other people in and around my league group. The blanket statement of "this is wrong" is just silly.
the sivir pronunciation is not wrong actually, in Brazil we pronounce it that way so, kind of a not cool move saying "that's obviously not her name". but all and all the video is great, and this ai situation is really problematic
The Samira icon and Ezreal splash art are painted by people I believe - however it is more indicative of artists being rushed, crunched, or generally overworked. Even in those other 6-fingered examples come from media like animation, comic strips/manga where artists are also expected to draw very many drawings for a project. If quality control is slipping, its likely that either everyone is overworked, the controllers (directors) never paid attention that much before, or these same exhausted artists turn to AI to help in their time crunching out of desperation. Could be any number of factors. I don't trust Riot as a company that is trying to monetize even the way you click if this direction continues.
ezreal splash art yeah but not the samira icon, hands and face are the 2 most important tools for expression in comics/cartoon and the whole focus of samiras emoji is the face/hands, someone who draws anatomy for a living doesn't accidentally sketch 6 fingers and even if they did it would get spotted on the rough or final lineart like you said those other 6 finger examples are from studios where multiple people are working on multiple panels/frames a day and things get rushed or lost in translation, this isn't something that happens on a single simple cartoon art piece that basically has 1930s rubber hose level of detail
In regards to splasharts its clear theres some sort of formula they use, since they refuse to give us good dynamic splasharts, its always the same poses and angles almost nothing new ever gets put on the table and when it dors it gets brushed aside by the community.
the other sketches for splashes always look much more interesting and dynamic than the one the art director or whoever chooses. before the splashes used to be really dynamic like project vayne, now they all just stand and do nothing
I just hate them at this point. Heck, a part of me believes the voice actor doesn't even exist and they're trying to cover things up. As for the images... What else were they supposed to say? Yeah we fired half the art team to use machines cause it's cheaper? While true, fans won't like it.
I remember many seasons ago playing riven against you back in plat something and you added me after and we chopped it up for a bit as 2 degen riven otps. Was stoked to see you've turned your passion into a career in the scene. Keep up the good work m8
They where honestly starting to become more transparent, gave updates on the game and adressed issues in and out of the game, but since the ahri skin it feels like theyve smelled money and its gotten really bad. Its very disappointing to see and I'm glad to see alot of people speaking up about this, because thats the only way they will learn apparantly.
I remember when the Sivir announcement Voice Over thing first happened. I’d said that if that was AI, it was probably the single best AI voiceover I’d ever seen. I think people are somewhat overestimating generative AI. It’s possible the artist of the Samira emote used some kind of “AI autocomplete” tool, but there was definitely a human behind the original drawing of that. At very least, there’s too much understanding of human emotion in that face to be AI.
i've been convinced for a long time they have some poses/formula for the splash art, there are so many that are very similar (for example, project vayne and bullet angel kaisa, both old skins)
In recent skins riots been reusing vfx at times too, which is kinda sad to see. They definitely have the money to pay an artist and make enough from the skins to justify it. If they don't it speaks of the poor quality of the concept and the skin probably never should have been shipped that way. Also why is riot saying "if the players don't like it we won't ship it" just to release Viktor update regardless of the massive push back. In general Viktor is mote of an ASU than a VGU, his abilities got a slight overhaul rather than an actual rework, staying pretty much the same. His design lost all the mechanic guy parts which was his identity and made him unique in league to be replaced with just another mage. With Voli they were like "lore voli is kinda an eldritch abomination of a bear, but people really want a bear, so we keep it". Similar to Viktor Skarner Al's lost his crystal identity, which was sad but understandable, cause it had to move because of Arcane. With season 2 being visually stunning, but having way poorer writing it feels very awkward justifying the change. Really hope Riot will move in a more player focused direction again cause a lot of recent changes have felt so top down corpo and simply profit focused.
They were released long time ago for Arcane, way before generative AI was this advanced with artworks To be fair its meant to be young Cait that does resemble the icon
at 0:57 you say "note the original looking much more premium" completely disagree. I obviously dont agree with stealing someone elses work, but the riot version is upscaled. looks way more "premium". the original art isnt bad, im just saying stating it looks more premium doesnt sound very genuine.
When will entertainment companies learn that making their products more expensive does not equal larger profit? It drives more people away if anything. The NBA has ridiculous subscription prices and it’s caused ratings to go lower and lower. Most Streaming services have increased their prices as well as implementing a paywall for less ads. It’s predatory and it is a shame that it’s come to this. I’m sure most jinx players and arcane fans would love a jinx ultimate skin. But instead it costs 250 dollars. Unbelievable
Q: "When will entertainment companies learn that making their products more expensive does not equal larger profit?" A: It s increasing profits by a big margin. Yes, less people are buying - but the ones that do more than make up for it. whales are the main source of income for F2P games, the people who pay ~10$ per month on a game arent even 20% of the revenue, even though they are much more numerus than the whales. Gacha games are literally built around that premise. (in addition, someone who whales on a game is less likely to quit. Because quitting is losing all the money they put in) League was always founded by whales - it is just that recently riot decided to create products solely for whales to increase revenue
league is a gatcha game, forced 50% wr and its ranked is flawed you cant win unless you make loads of new accounts, its evil riot is a business not a good company , all engagement matchmaking
bro your content is amazing, I genuinely get so happy when I see a new video of yours in my notifications. Because I'm not glued to sites like reddit or twitter, a lot of the drama stuff and news regarding league and riot in general doesn't reach me unless someone like you makes a video covering it. I really appreciate what you do for the league community in keeping everyone informed on what's going on as well as your coverage of pro play series like the LCK and worlds finals as well as LR. I'm so excited for more stuff from you in 2025.
It's difficult to blame the entire Riot Games company for such errors/failure. It could be one department having green light to post such things without QC + Supervision (Stamp of approval). This is normal human greed in massive companies, people got away with way worse and the entire company got the blame. When I worked for studios, I could put in anything I wanted, including secret Easter eggs, without anyone knowing. This is pretty normal and often people don't give a crap because it's just a job. Over 60% just want the paycheck and get out, this is a point people often forget. Never blame the entire company for such small issues, it's often that people (Group of 6-15) don't care because it's simply a fucking everyday job.
What you're saying just proves the point that the company should be blamed. This is exactly why nobody is blaming the individuals, but the company. To the individual people it's just a job, like you say. But management and supervision are "the company". Lack of QA is "the company". $500 skins are "the company's" fault. Everyday workers don't have influence over these decision, "the company" does
I've been an artist for 20 years and I didn't have the finger problem for at least 19 years. And I'm nowhere near qualified to work as an artist on a game company. What I mean is that it's AI.
they already are. no "pull history" so people cant check how much of a scam it is, plans to remove boxes so people cant get decent rewards anymore and so on.
With all the layoffs there really wont be any riot employees to blame, it really just feels like the constant layoffs are reflecting the quality of the content that is currently being produced.
art mistakes are now the minefield thanks to ai, even if the artist makes a slight hand mistake or use "similar" version of an art they got inspired from they'll either get death threats or "this is clearly ai" messages. making art is already hard and people are going even harder on the artists
honestly when they released the fairy court skins: tristana, lux, lilia and others, I saw from the splasharts that it was AI generated and then cleaned up. it was so obvious for some reason, the tristana art still just doesn't sit right for me, it doesn't look handdrawn or made. it really looks very different from their other arts and AI generated in every way. i guess riot is just sometimes really good at cleaning up the AI generated art for their splash arts
I wouldn't be surprised if they used AI for the splash arts and emotes, considering the lower quality of the skins they represent. Not saying they're fully AI generated, but using an AI generated framework feels very likely as a way to save money on a product which isn't made to make a ton of it.
It’s highly likely. There’s a process to digital drawing, you go over it 3 times minimum (sketch, line art, and coloring) not to mention QA. even if it wasn’t used this is unacceptable for a billion dollar company…
As a researcher in hands 3D reconstruction, we can't blame riot for not having good AI hand generation when the state of the art isn't there yet. Hands, and humans in the wild is still a developing space. 1:51 they should probably animate any issues after ai gen
Interesting thing about the voiceover segment. If I saw it I wouldn't have thought of it as AI because 1. the pronunciation needed to be clear and 2. depending on the environment people can pronounce Sivir's name differently, my friends and I say her name like the voice actor did instead of how I hear everyone else say it
@@luk4s56 not entirely, I bet there are def people there who really did care about it, and it does have some qualities which are decent, but yeah it overall still is much owrse
Imagine being a voice actor, doing a voiceover, and immediately having people assured it's ai. How fucking awful that must feel for Marsh. I really feel for him. This is one of the many risks of ai become more popular and better at imitating actual art. The more it spreads, the more paranoid we become and the higher the chance of accusing actual artists of using ai. We need to be more careful and not instantly rush to assumptions like this.
Its like blaming OnlyFans for damaging the society but ignoring the fact that so many people pay and support the company. If riot makes skins that expensive, just ignore it/dont buy it?
ngl with the ai voiceover, I can understand it being real. In my last job, I apparently sounded so much like a robot in the call, (me and my sisters sound pretty monotone unless we're talking about stuff we really enjoy) that they would hang up or ask if I was robot, and you can 100% say I did not survive in the job for long for that
I feel like calling the voiceover AI-made because of the way he pronounced Sivir is kinda dumb... Like, I wouldn't say that the pronunciation is *wrong*, heck, it's even what I use most of the time. And while I do agree he was making a bit of a weird voice (it's a VO for a mobile game, not surprising lel), I don't think it directly sounded AI-generated at all.
Idk if I'm going insane, but I've encountered an unusually high amount of players with the most expensive skins as of lately. Back to back Jinx skins, Ahri, and then other ones that required more money than Riot deserved for it. All these players played worse than bots, to the point where I'm starting to think they added in bots with the fancy skins as walking ads for them.
I love how they have an explanation for every mishap. They immediately call people to speak up for them, or quickly make "art" to prove that the recent layoffs have nothing to do with cost cutting in the design department and the broader operation of AI.
@@funky6942 dont worry , i stopped after 10 years, took me a while to realise game was playing me, with bad team mates when i was doing good and good team mates when i did bad,its not playable bro
I make mistakes at work most weeks, but I also don’t work at a billion dollar company that should have proper checks and balances in place for literally everything, especially given the enormous prices they charge for in game content
I think it's also indicative of bad players in the art industry. I used to think AI was going to be a good thing that made art better and easier to make for artists, but now I'm starting to see why artists are so against it. because of the unethical/amoral who would use it for the money. What we need is much more rigorous checks/quality control to ensure art theft doesn't occur, and that any "artist" that is found to submit artwork that is theft is immediately blacklisted from the entire industry and can never get a commission again.
I have alot of experience making Ai pictures. And when my gf showed me her mains were getting new skins, i got angry because it looks so much alike of the things i could make, an ameteur. Wtf is this. Their art used to have a proper standard.
If you ever watched old anime, you can literally see moments where charactters are duplicated, or they are missing entire fingers or even ENTIRE ARMS or extremities. It makes you think, how the helll did they not see that when they was doing it? But it happens.
I just dont believe that over the process of making the emote, the sketching, base colour and then rendering they didn't notice the extra finger on the hand. Drawing hands have always been an issue among lots of artist, but making this kind of mistake seems so unreal.
As an artist, i can completely agree with the six fingers issue. I've already done it before... Well, i'm kinda newbie tho, just 4 years of drawing, but indeed i can really understand these mistakes being made in simple emotes.
seeing 6 fingers and instantly acussing them of using ai is such a wild acussation, I think it's a reflection on how paranoid everyone is on the matter imo
It's concerning, Riot is walking a fine line of losing who they are and ruining the franchise like Blizzard. I'm sure many say they already have but I don't think so quite yet.
I think a lot of people have to realize the reason they HAD to implement the gatcha stuff was to be in standing the chinese law. Gatcha is okay, but loot boxes are considered gambling
With the ezreal point in question, his head itself is an extremely common pose not just used spash art but concept art aswell. 3 of the 6 skins also use the same head pose the only thing different between them is the angle in which the viewer is drawn from, I highly doubt they would use the psyops skin as reference over this and was just down to artist workflow with them drawing the face/head in they are most comfortable with.
Dude Riot made the most addictive game in history and funneled their money into departments to make it more addictive. Hopefully all these new age video game companies' executives face something after the millions of young men's lives they've ruined.
Having spent a lot of work constructing hands, yeah it's not a common mistake but it's an easy one to make depending on the process you go with. Like, if you're trying to go fast on a sketch there's all sorts of little anatomy details that can and do go wrong that someone else who is rushing a bit to get a bigger render done might miss too, and as every person working on that thing is on a deadline to get things ready for implementation that's a lot of chances for something to be missed even with a lot of eyes on it.
i do think sivirs name USED to be pronounced how we say it, but ever since they released azir, with her being a direct descendant of him, i think her name is pronounced like his is, and i have been saying it like that since
I am very apathetic to the use of ai. When it looks bad, it looks bad. For things like the blatant blurry hands and whatnot, yeah it makes sense to bring it up, but many of Riot’s skins have been derivative for a decade. It feels odd that people need something like ai to get angry about unrelated long-standing problems, but it’s good that people are finally taking notice. Hopefully the art team gets more respect and resources from the company in the future. I’m a firm believer that these folks just need the freedom to work with a reasonable timeline and proper direction from leadership that’s willing to spend the bare minimum on projects.
It should have been the best year ever for Riot Games with the release of Arcane. Instead Riot has: Started selling predatory, Fear of Missing Out, massively overpriced skins. Fired a large amount of their (clearly) important staff. Put staff that used to be important to League of Legends on other product development indefinitely, leading to an overall decline in quality of League of Legends itself. Started using AI to fill the gaps. Said they'll be trying to censor chat once again, locked behind honor levels; essentially adapting a social credit system in a game that was originally American made. Added an intrusive, Root level anti-cheat that doesn't even really catch that much cheating and instead is mostly used to censor chat and monitor players while they are using Riot Games products. Announced they'll basically be removing the play-to-earn reward skin system. And this was all in one year. It has not been a good year for Riot, even though it easily should have been. All they had to do was not do literally any of the above things, except release Arcane.
I think in this case, the artists likely know what will be approved for splash arts and just cookie cut new splashes. If I had a deadline to make a high quality splash and I knew it would be likely shot down if I did something off the wall I might make a new one using a pre-existing one as the template. Like what ezreals looks like. The hand one looks like an oopsie that slipped through. I won't understand why they didn't catch the plagiarism of the fanart skins. That is much easier to catch
Lets be real, there is not a single thing wrong with using AI for art. Eventually AI will be simply better than artists anyway. People getting upset is beyond ridiculous.
I don't disagree with the use of AI in a working process, it can make you win a lot of time on a long project. The only requirement is to at least correct the blunders made by the AI, otherwise it just seems like they asked a bot to do it, they publish it, and then they get a lot of money out of it despite real designers who work very hard for way better results. Here is the DIY of how to use AI in your work : - Have a good idea of what you want and prompt it to the AI - Take multiple propositions and choose which ones you want to keep - Remove unnecessary stuff, add cool things & correct AI mistakes - Get a feedback - Do the normal stuffs that occurs normally in the usual scenario of your job To do a parallel with league, it's way better if you have a friend who you can count on to grind with even if he does mistakes and that you have to correct them, than to play with a guy that eloboosts you (in this case the elobooster is'nt better than your firend but you got the idea).
the only none slop content thing riot has implemented in recent times is the production of arcane, their skins have gotten sloppy, their updates have gotten sloppy, and that emote is absolutely their fault lmao i don't get why people are rushing to the defense of this, if it isn't ai and truly is just an artist mistake it's an embarassing mistake to make for a job you're being paid for and speaks to the quality they have been providing as of late.
Why are we pretending the remade Zyra and Evelynn drawings are worse? Don't get me wrong I really don't like riot games and I think they are a shitty shady company. But riot's version is definitely more polished and refined. Is it to support the original artist, or some moral reason?
honestly im shocked that they even introduced the ability to get free skins. i have no idea how much money they missed out on by doing something that no one would ever seriously suggest or expect. Now its being toned down its obvious theres going to be a spike of disgruntled players but it was good while it lasted. Saying its a regression is technically true, but if you give me a cake and half way through eating it you take it away, i still got half a cake out of nowhere. sounds kind of greedy to demand the other half
Bro the fact that you HAVE to see the gacha before you can open your loot tab is scummy. It's designed to capture people who have no impulse control.
that's exactly it. People who have ADHD, people who are bipolar, folks with autism who are prone to laser focus on their hobbies even at the expense of their financial solvency - these games and platforms are designed specifically to exploit and predate on us. They aren't selling an earnestly crafted service at a fair price. They are manipulating the psyche of a vulnerable individual to con them out of as much of their time and money as possible and these games are run as nothing more or less than immersive casinos. I long for the days of the up-front monthly subscription. what was ever wrong with that model? wasn't it already profitable?
sociopaths?
@@swingtity9798 people prone to addiction
addicts
@@aiuipapito happened to me
The fact that riot is pushing this new Exalted skins that costs $250 is insane + them removing the reroll skins and free Hextech chests rewards is pure regression sad to see them becoming even more greedy.
We won't be able to reroll a skin with 3 shards?
@@ColtJustColt I don't think so, havn't heard at least.
@@ColtJustColt they said that you wont get free shard anymore. So you get just the skins you got dropped.
@@ColtJustColt You're still gonna be able to reroll skin shards but you will not be getting free chests anymore from earning S with a character. Tokens will no longer exist from the BP and orbs.
Whatt??? Thats bullshit@@viktorijasun3082
This is what happens when the new CEO comes from finance, the focus suddenly shifts to only profits.
They make zero profits on Arcane show, musics, esports, cinematics. Same thing for Valorant. They still keep LoR even if nobody plays it. So why cant they price their cosmetics however they want in their free games? Profits comes only from their ingame cosmetics. But from entertainment? Zero.
@@GameManCZ2000 Let them be bro, people now a days just cant shut up. All of them including me have something to say even in the smallest of things. Maybe its just human behavior but damnn I just hate how everyone just complains and fucking complains I'm just sick of it.
@@GameManCZ2000Except they do get profits from Arcane.
I may not know much about business personally
but I am 100% sure, that to be on Netflix you have to have an agreement with Netflix and there's gains of profit for your series being watched, similarly to RUclips
because otherwise who the hell would want to put their series in Netflix if it wasnt the case.
If there was no profit, who would want to spend 250m$ on a series only to give it for free to a streaming platform where the platform gets profit and you the creator get nothing
?
nonsense
@@ImRaiz0league is slowly became hot garbage LOL they're selling a 250$skin that has a end game nexus destruction victory/defeat that's not including with the skin.... For like 70$ more btw
@@bakuzma8233 Ye I agree with the jinx exalted one it aint even that good tbh. I'd argue the Jhin and Faker's Ahri though, it has great effects. Well they can do what ever they want, its a free game so what can we do
Ok I voice that removing nearly all free content in 2025 is bad
Very controversial opinion
wait what??
b-b-b-b-b-but how are they gonna make money if they let us have free stuff :(
R.I.P. Mastery Chests
Always remember: Riot games' (senior Principal Technical Artist) job posting/description literally states that they use AI in asset creation for: "asset generation, procedural content creation, texture generation, and animation" and more.
They just don't want the negative press
Riot just hides behind "It's upper management!" A tactic that gets them away from accountability, And everyone will weirdly defend it too. . . While also ignoring that Riot has been caught so many times doing A.i Sketchy stuff the most notable example was that season start video not too long ago that was 100% A.I Generated.
@@LostSoul-TeemoMain The Brazilian anniversary video a year or so ago was completely Ai. It goes to show how little they cared about the Brazilian server that they couldn't even bother to make a proper video. Riot was one of the first of the big gaming companies to use Ai when Ai was first becoming a thing. And Riot has shown time and time again they are more than happy to cut corners and use Ai when possible. I wouldn't believe a single thing Riot says period, about using Ai or just anything in general. Riot is a billion dollar company they have no incentive to EVER tell the truth. Just assume Riot is lying because no big company ever speaks the truth.
@@TheRandomLetsplays Which is crazy when you stop to think about how the Brazilian competitive league scene was and still is quite healthy, people here love the game despite its flaws.
Partially because all you idiots don't understand AI, nor the content production pipeline, nor the value in automating routine tasks so that the artists can actually focus on creating stuff that matters.
Cracks me up that teenagers who have never had a job, let alone run a business, think they know everything about asset production.
@@OberynTheRedViper Those are a lot of assumptions with very little substance. Ideating and illustrating emotes is not a "routine task". Creative processes can by very nature, not be routine, while AI, by its code and funcionality, not be creative.
I would suggest reading up on Diffusion Models funczionality and to actually do some creative work to understand how both work.
Additionaly, i would suggest not responding soley based on emotion, as it makes you lash out in comments that make you look like an idiot.
3:53 cannon miss spotted
Bro don’t expose me 😔
-1
fuck, you beat me to it gz
I also scrolled down to look for this comment
And it was only a fracture of a match, imagine how many he missed 😔
Every time I see companies getting massive backlash for using AI, it brings some relief to know that many people still prefer their media to be created by humans instead of generated by a computer.
I hope that you realize that Arcane was entirely rendered by computers.
@@Sammysapphira
There is a world of difference between learning computer graphics and writing an ai prompt.
@@Sammysapphiragenerated and rendered are not the same word and do not have the same meaning.
Too bad I cant remember a time where a company getting blasted for AI has changed anything so far.
@@SammysapphiraI hope you realize you're letting the whole world know you don't know a thing about animation and have very bad attention to detail when you watch something
The thing with Sivir's VO, the guy deleted and didn't tweet since because he got a lot of death threats
Internet dwellers trying not to be caustic troglodytes.
what a surprise..... twitter is a breeding ground for society's unloved degenerates still dont understand why we tolerate it
My godness, the goblins on a whole another level..
poor guy i'd love to somehow support him
man twitter is the most vile cesspool of horrible people in the world, someone mispornounce a fictional character's name and they get death threats, i dont understand how that ,amy people are just bad like that and even less why still so many people use that trash excuse of social media
Time to lay off more employees !
I mean they should be. They be paying all these employees just for them to greenlight ksante yuumi and aurora
Not balance team tho … they are working SOOOO hard 😀
@@vrmax1919 yep shame AI cant replace them just yet.
With regards to the ezreal skins, this exact same thing was done with the new viktor and hwei icons and they were basically identical in facial structure. Quite sad to see how riot have become more okay with just reusing old things, even when its a damn VGU and not even the same champ.
i mean like how manny portaits of a person standing can u make before u get to reuse a pose? league had like 500 splash arts
Reusing things doesn’t always immediately equate to it being bad. Always making new original stuff is good in general, but very expensive, time consuming and tiring. It’s just a tradeoff that Riot has to take into account that us outsiders don’t see. So do take that into consideration before judging anything just because it is not original
@@thienhuynh7962 guys, poor riot just dosent have the money to pay for original art... anyways, here is the new 250 skin, enjoy!
@OffisianO Look at people outside. You will rarely witness two matching faces. A lot of people don't like the new Viktor look because he doesn't have any identity. He's looking like a korean idol with a fake face and it's just not appealing at all. Now if riot did use Hwei to create Viktor, I'm not surprised that nobody likes him anymore.
You may not have an issue with that for now, but when you'll have these everywhere you will understand why it is problematic.
Also to answer your question, try typing "Portrait"' and watch artist sketbooks. There are thousands of drawings and you won't ever find one face matching another UNLESS it is the same character. Try drawing yourself and doing two similar faces with slighty different angle. Then you might understand how hard it is to keep the same facial trait and not make it something completely different.
@@thienhuynh7962 it's very difficult to see this from riot's POV when it's a VGU, this is something you should be heavily prioritising, especially it being to do with arcane. They have dropped the ball hard on this VGU and say they don't have the resources but then come out with another $250 skin that doesn't need to be coming out this soon. Its clear they are trying to get as much money as they can out of whales instead of actually putting time and effort into making the game better and improving the game for the players who have been playing for all this time.
I'm really glad your channel is slowly popping off and recognised by the league community
🫶
You mean the eurocentric league community right?
@@LT_I_AM wdym?
@@taxman_x he means the eurocentric league community wtfdym wdym idiot???
@@taxman_x he said whitey league. Is your reading comprehension on vacation? What’s with this new zoomer slop sentence “what do you mean?” Being spammed all over? Quit the passive aggressive wormy language and just say what you mean from jump.
As an artist myself: I didn't even notice the Samira hand was wrong until someone pointed it out.
I think it's absolutely a mistake, one that's super easy to miss especially on thumbnails like that as they aren't as immensely looked at compared to other forms like splashart.
I'm not much of an artist, but I've also drawn hands with six fingers. One time it was followed by a loud gasp by someone looking over my shoulder, it was quite embarrassing.
It's disappointing to see that recently, Riot Games has shifted its eyes to money, unlike before where they were still doing fine or great even without or at least minimal greed.
Well, they put finance guy into CEO seat. It always beginning of the end. Or at least of a very serious crisis.
It's likely some bts swap of who is in control.
What? A business wants a profit? damn that's shocking
need to get back those billions used in arcane
@@kirby9427 This is misinformation people keep saying Arcane cost them a lot of money when Netflix probably paid for a good portion of it.
They kicked a huge amount of people out of the company, yet, they are still releasing the same amount of skins and champs.
that's not possible unless if:
1- employees work extra hours
2- employees take work to their houses
3- employees take existing skins and do some contour changes ( that's why we all feel the same on all skins and they look similar)
and lastly
4- They use AI or EXPERIMENTING AI, as i'm sure in no time, you will see full skins made purely by AI ( that, if not using AI to create an entier champion)
can't wait to purchase MissingNo
just need to stop buying until they reduce amount of skins i guess lol
Or maybe they Overhired in the past and the company is actually in the perfect staff capacity / work balance right now
Or there were just too many workers hired during covid.
And they're putting less effort in their skins, like Jinx.
You forgot something EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, a little less than a month ago, Riot was offering jobs for "Data Engineers", which are, in other words, to create REgenerative AI models with the art other artists made for Riot, right after 2 rounds of layoffs
I think most of these are just a result of rushed deadlines and little compensation to artist. If You have only a few days/weeks to draw an entirely new ezreal skin splash art in combination with a bunch of other splash art, you’re going to need to cut corners / quality control
Not sure if you are aware, but there is a screening process for like 4-5 different options chosen before a Splash even starts rendering production. The only similar thing is the face which could easily have happened organically. People need to dabble more in art. These allegations are ridiculous. And if near the end you notice it is similar, you are not redoing it. These Splashes take about a month to render by the artist. And sometimes changing something makes the composition no longer work. I work as an animator and have done my fair share of redrawing and it's not rare to get the same stuff from time to time because it just stylistically works best for that composition. This likely has nothing to do with QA and simply and an unfortunate reality of art and deadlines. If they had an infinite amount of time, sure, they can delay it all and redo everything. But they can't because their schedule is a biweekly release schedule.
Does it suck? Yes. Is it a big deal? Not at all.
I'd much rather complain about Jinx being a limited time skin rather than simply a super expensive one. THAT is predatory since it's a digital good that is tied to nothing but money (Victorious skins, for example, are rewards for accomplishment).
@@SiMeGamer Yeah most of these "allegations" read like people getting mad on artist's behalf, and therefore they don't know what is actually offensive and what is not
@@SiMeGamer "Not sure if you are aware, but there is a screening process for like 4-5 different options chosen before a Splash even starts rendering production." Yes, typically this is Riot's procedure with making splash arts. However, with recent layoffs, this is always subject to change. Less drafts to get skins out more quickly. It's possible.
@jarcius this has not changed. And the benefit of the doubt would require to treat it as such until further evidence.
@@SiMeGamer I'm not sure Riot Games (the company as a whole) has earned the benefit of the doubt, though. As unfortunate as that is for their staff, Riot just does not have the goodwill of its audience anymore. If this were, say, the first, or even tenth bad, anti-consumer, anti-artist thing they potentially could have done? Sure, I'd be hesitant to believe it. Too bad this is Riot Games, and that's not nearly true for this year alone. Considering their Principal Technical Artist job listing states that they use AI for "asset generation, procedural content creation, texture generation, and animation", I don't necessarily think these allegations are unfair or unwarranted, and certainly not ridiculous.
Were they wrong this time? The Ezreal splash one is almost certainly a reach, but it's not exactly hard to get where people are coming from, either. I don't think it's bad that people are at least on high alert for shite business practices. I'm surprised Riot doesn't keep more receipts like the Samira icon on-hand if they truly cared about gaining some more of that goodwill back.
500$/200$ skins every month = firing all employees and using Ai
useing AI to HELP vs using AI to WORK are completely different
Very surprise that quanlity control team allowed this to pass
THIS.
AI will at it's current pace never replace humans completly in their work. But they can help support them.
i remember all to well watching a dyslexic minecraft streamer create a modpack and he used a AI as spelling controll for his code/text. He inmeditally got called out by someone in chat like "Ohhh he is abusing AI in his fucking mod pack imma tell this to the twitter birds" on which i said "You clearly don't know how to spell because you fucking failed the spelling on multiple fucking words, and you clearly rely on spelling control in all of your messages, because you dont even know how that shit works"
Never saw that fucker in his chat again, and he didn't even get banned.
QA teams are the number one thing to be cut or outsourced from what Ive seen in companies. Not surprised at all.
What QA team? It's been trending to fire or heavily reduce their numbers for a while now. Race to the bottom
Very interesting typo.. its more like quantity control now
Yeah, the effects of the layoffs is showing to the point that I no longer trust Riot anymore, as I have moved on from the Runeterra lore.
As always, thanks for the very informative news.
The ATLA mistake also happened because of layoffs! League players and logic lmfao.
@@itsgonnabeokay9341 Why are you writing like everyone and their grandma know what the ATLA mistake is? For all you know, this is their first instance of what you're saying and it's a natural reaction to have. Dafuq?
As someone who spent a few thousand dollars in League in the past, I think I'm finally done. All the changes recently really pushed me away, the new way they're doing things is really disgusting. Every single time there's a change it's for the worse and it feels they're trying to trick you at every corner. I'll just take my spendings elsewhere.
Same here, I can't stand enshittification by billion dollar companies. And it's not like big, polished games aren't happening all around us. Maybe it's time to jump ship, we've been playing this shit game for a decade.
You've already caused enough damage lmao, imagine spending " few thousand dollars " on a low quality anime game.
I’ve had my account since 2014 and accumulated about a few grand on a free game. I used to treat myself to a skin or something on my paydays or weekends. I used to keep up constantly with skin spotlights to see if any of my mains would get a skin. I’ve stopped really spending any kind of money on league and the skins coming out are just so bland and feel they could just fit in a few different skin lines. I feel the skins are losing a key identity to them and it’s getting hard to tell what champ the skin is even supposed to be for now. I suppose it’s a good thing to keep it away from greedy riot. Hopefully they learn :(
Regarding the AI voiceover, I wouldn't really rule the pronunciation for "Sivir" as incorrect. If anything, it's technically the correct pronunciation, considering that she is a descendant of Azir and the last part of his name is pronounced that way.
In Eastern Europe it's also pronounced like that (we may be all wrong who knows), so I was always ok with this form haha
bro fr, i like this video but "that's not how sivir's name is pronounced"??? Bruh i've been pronouncing her name like that ever since I saw her.
When you don't hear the champions name called very often, I can say I pronounced it "Siv-eer" as did a lot of other people in and around my league group.
The blanket statement of "this is wrong" is just silly.
In portuguese its like that
Me and everyone I know always pronounced it Siv-ear instead of Siv-ah
the sivir pronunciation is not wrong actually, in Brazil we pronounce it that way so, kind of a not cool move saying "that's obviously not her name". but all and all the video is great, and this ai situation is really problematic
The Samira icon and Ezreal splash art are painted by people I believe - however it is more indicative of artists being rushed, crunched, or generally overworked. Even in those other 6-fingered examples come from media like animation, comic strips/manga where artists are also expected to draw very many drawings for a project. If quality control is slipping, its likely that either everyone is overworked, the controllers (directors) never paid attention that much before, or these same exhausted artists turn to AI to help in their time crunching out of desperation. Could be any number of factors. I don't trust Riot as a company that is trying to monetize even the way you click if this direction continues.
ezreal splash art yeah but not the samira icon, hands and face are the 2 most important tools for expression in comics/cartoon and the whole focus of samiras emoji is the face/hands, someone who draws anatomy for a living doesn't accidentally sketch 6 fingers and even if they did it would get spotted on the rough or final lineart
like you said those other 6 finger examples are from studios where multiple people are working on multiple panels/frames a day and things get rushed or lost in translation, this isn't something that happens on a single simple cartoon art piece that basically has 1930s rubber hose level of detail
I don't even play League anymore, but your content is really fun to watch and it's a great way to be in the loop with everything that's going on.
In regards to splasharts its clear theres some sort of formula they use, since they refuse to give us good dynamic splasharts, its always the same poses and angles almost nothing new ever gets put on the table and when it dors it gets brushed aside by the community.
Something is really off with the splasharts lately. That's why Rain Shepherd Milio is such a standout for me this year, alongside Janitor Threah. 😅
the other sketches for splashes always look much more interesting and dynamic than the one the art director or whoever chooses. before the splashes used to be really dynamic like project vayne, now they all just stand and do nothing
I just hate them at this point. Heck, a part of me believes the voice actor doesn't even exist and they're trying to cover things up. As for the images... What else were they supposed to say? Yeah we fired half the art team to use machines cause it's cheaper? While true, fans won't like it.
imagine being too lazy to read 5 lines of text 💀
I remember many seasons ago playing riven against you back in plat something and you added me after and we chopped it up for a bit as 2 degen riven otps. Was stoked to see you've turned your passion into a career in the scene. Keep up the good work m8
The sivir prononciation is somewhat correct in french tho
Seeveer
in german too.
Portuguese too
Yes, I don't know only a problem for the english speaker I guess ...
Bro its sevier hahaha
crazy how theres crying over drawings
Its easy to describe riot games in one word "Lazy"
They where honestly starting to become more transparent, gave updates on the game and adressed issues in and out of the game, but since the ahri skin it feels like theyve smelled money and its gotten really bad. Its very disappointing to see and I'm glad to see alot of people speaking up about this, because thats the only way they will learn apparantly.
I remember when the Sivir announcement Voice Over thing first happened. I’d said that if that was AI, it was probably the single best AI voiceover I’d ever seen. I think people are somewhat overestimating generative AI. It’s possible the artist of the Samira emote used some kind of “AI autocomplete” tool, but there was definitely a human behind the original drawing of that. At very least, there’s too much understanding of human emotion in that face to be AI.
i've been convinced for a long time they have some poses/formula for the splash art, there are so many that are very similar (for example, project vayne and bullet angel kaisa, both old skins)
In recent skins riots been reusing vfx at times too, which is kinda sad to see. They definitely have the money to pay an artist and make enough from the skins to justify it. If they don't it speaks of the poor quality of the concept and the skin probably never should have been shipped that way.
Also why is riot saying "if the players don't like it we won't ship it" just to release Viktor update regardless of the massive push back.
In general Viktor is mote of an ASU than a VGU, his abilities got a slight overhaul rather than an actual rework, staying pretty much the same. His design lost all the mechanic guy parts which was his identity and made him unique in league to be replaced with just another mage. With Voli they were like "lore voli is kinda an eldritch abomination of a bear, but people really want a bear, so we keep it". Similar to Viktor Skarner Al's lost his crystal identity, which was sad but understandable, cause it had to move because of Arcane. With season 2 being visually stunning, but having way poorer writing it feels very awkward justifying the change.
Really hope Riot will move in a more player focused direction again cause a lot of recent changes have felt so top down corpo and simply profit focused.
Kat getting skins back to back huh.
Also Riot just cutting corners everywhere isn't a surprise.
I thought this video was gonna be about the Arcane icons in mythic shop that look very AI-made, the "Caitlyn" icon looks nothing like her.
They were released long time ago for Arcane, way before generative AI was this advanced with artworks
To be fair its meant to be young Cait that does resemble the icon
at 0:57 you say "note the original looking much more premium"
completely disagree. I obviously dont agree with stealing someone elses work, but the riot version is upscaled. looks way more "premium".
the original art isnt bad, im just saying stating it looks more premium doesnt sound very genuine.
I agree, and I think the recent TOS update makes creators of fan art completely unable to claim copyright vs Riot.
He's obviously pandering. The 'riot' version looks objectively better, not that this justifies anything.
When will entertainment companies learn that making their products more expensive does not equal larger profit? It drives more people away if anything. The NBA has ridiculous subscription prices and it’s caused ratings to go lower and lower. Most Streaming services have increased their prices as well as implementing a paywall for less ads. It’s predatory and it is a shame that it’s come to this. I’m sure most jinx players and arcane fans would love a jinx ultimate skin. But instead it costs 250 dollars. Unbelievable
Q:
"When will entertainment companies learn that making their products more expensive does not equal larger profit?"
A:
It s increasing profits by a big margin.
Yes, less people are buying - but the ones that do more than make up for it.
whales are the main source of income for F2P games, the people who pay ~10$ per month on a game arent even 20% of the revenue, even though they are much more numerus than the whales.
Gacha games are literally built around that premise.
(in addition, someone who whales on a game is less likely to quit. Because quitting is losing all the money they put in)
League was always founded by whales - it is just that recently riot decided to create products solely for whales to increase revenue
i remember when you were bouncing this video structure idea around on ur twitch stream awhile back. crazy how far you've come. big ups ♥
league is a gatcha game, forced 50% wr and its ranked is flawed
you cant win unless you make loads of new accounts, its evil
riot is a business not a good company , all engagement matchmaking
@@peterpan1011 stop coping, you dont have forced 50% wr and etc etc....
3:51 actually, in europe we say her name like that we simply say sivir not siva
alot of people actually call her "severe" instead of "sivir" so that shouldnt be proof of AI use
i was looking for that comment lol
Solid point
bro your content is amazing, I genuinely get so happy when I see a new video of yours in my notifications. Because I'm not glued to sites like reddit or twitter, a lot of the drama stuff and news regarding league and riot in general doesn't reach me unless someone like you makes a video covering it. I really appreciate what you do for the league community in keeping everyone informed on what's going on as well as your coverage of pro play series like the LCK and worlds finals as well as LR.
I'm so excited for more stuff from you in 2025.
It's difficult to blame the entire Riot Games company for such errors/failure. It could be one department having green light to post such things without QC + Supervision (Stamp of approval).
This is normal human greed in massive companies, people got away with way worse and the entire company got the blame.
When I worked for studios, I could put in anything I wanted, including secret Easter eggs, without anyone knowing. This is pretty normal and often people don't give a crap because it's just a job.
Over 60% just want the paycheck and get out, this is a point people often forget.
Never blame the entire company for such small issues, it's often that people (Group of 6-15) don't care because it's simply a fucking everyday job.
What you're saying just proves the point that the company should be blamed. This is exactly why nobody is blaming the individuals, but the company. To the individual people it's just a job, like you say. But management and supervision are "the company". Lack of QA is "the company". $500 skins are "the company's" fault. Everyday workers don't have influence over these decision, "the company" does
damn rival, you're videos are actually pretty good, I never noticed before
3:50 actually everyone in greece calls her sivIR not sIvir lol
I've been an artist for 20 years and I didn't have the finger problem for at least 19 years. And I'm nowhere near qualified to work as an artist on a game company.
What I mean is that it's AI.
Watch the majority of skins become Gacha lines like in wild rift
they already are. no "pull history" so people cant check how much of a scam it is, plans to remove boxes so people cant get decent rewards anymore and so on.
With all the layoffs there really wont be any riot employees to blame, it really just feels like the constant layoffs are reflecting the quality of the content that is currently being produced.
art mistakes are now the minefield thanks to ai, even if the artist makes a slight hand mistake or use "similar" version of an art they got inspired from they'll either get death threats or "this is clearly ai" messages. making art is already hard and people are going even harder on the artists
but i wonder do riot let it pass and not check do it have issue
your game looks so exceedingly bright and oversaturated. I couldn't tell it was actually the modern game until I saw the void grubs.
Btw the way he pronounced Sivir is the exact same way i pronounce it. Maybe im not a human after all
honestly when they released the fairy court skins: tristana, lux, lilia and others, I saw from the splasharts that it was AI generated and then cleaned up. it was so obvious for some reason, the tristana art still just doesn't sit right for me, it doesn't look handdrawn or made. it really looks very different from their other arts and AI generated in every way. i guess riot is just sometimes really good at cleaning up the AI generated art for their splash arts
I wouldn't be surprised if they used AI for the splash arts and emotes, considering the lower quality of the skins they represent.
Not saying they're fully AI generated, but using an AI generated framework feels very likely as a way to save money on a product which isn't made to make a ton of it.
It’s highly likely. There’s a process to digital drawing, you go over it 3 times minimum (sketch, line art, and coloring) not to mention QA. even if it wasn’t used this is unacceptable for a billion dollar company…
As a researcher in hands 3D reconstruction, we can't blame riot for not having good AI hand generation when the state of the art isn't there yet. Hands, and humans in the wild is still a developing space. 1:51 they should probably animate any issues after ai gen
Interesting thing about the voiceover segment. If I saw it I wouldn't have thought of it as AI because 1. the pronunciation needed to be clear and 2. depending on the environment people can pronounce Sivir's name differently, my friends and I say her name like the voice actor did instead of how I hear everyone else say it
2:18 You are already one of the staples my guy, your channel is legendary and your "Run It Down" concept was great from the start.
5:48 / 6:50 thats not AtLA (Avatar the last Airbender), thats TLoK (The Legend of Korra), not that it matters much :V
Yeah I was also confused but good to know I was right after all
nope it matters quite a bit, AtLA was made with love, TLoK was a slop made to profit off peoples memory of how good the previous show was.
@@luk4s56 not entirely, I bet there are def people there who really did care about it, and it does have some qualities which are decent, but yeah it overall still is much owrse
Imagine being a voice actor, doing a voiceover, and immediately having people assured it's ai. How fucking awful that must feel for Marsh. I really feel for him.
This is one of the many risks of ai become more popular and better at imitating actual art. The more it spreads, the more paranoid we become and the higher the chance of accusing actual artists of using ai. We need to be more careful and not instantly rush to assumptions like this.
Its like blaming OnlyFans for damaging the society but ignoring the fact that so many people pay and support the company. If riot makes skins that expensive, just ignore it/dont buy it?
The way you asked to sub actually worked for me, made me realize how often i watch you for this specific content
what you doin postin at 2 am
what are you doin being awake at 2 am
@@edr7270 Night shifts for me!
it's 9pm in austalia
11am
its 9pm his time, the world doesnt revolve around you
ngl with the ai voiceover, I can understand it being real. In my last job, I apparently sounded so much like a robot in the call, (me and my sisters sound pretty monotone unless we're talking about stuff we really enjoy) that they would hang up or ask if I was robot, and you can 100% say I did not survive in the job for long for that
I feel like calling the voiceover AI-made because of the way he pronounced Sivir is kinda dumb... Like, I wouldn't say that the pronunciation is *wrong*, heck, it's even what I use most of the time. And while I do agree he was making a bit of a weird voice (it's a VO for a mobile game, not surprising lel), I don't think it directly sounded AI-generated at all.
I mean if I was riot I would go over it before hand and tell him how it's pronounced
@@arkaina-ps7pd Yeah, that's most certainly a mistake on their part, since it's part of an official piece of Riot media :P
Idk if I'm going insane, but I've encountered an unusually high amount of players with the most expensive skins as of lately. Back to back Jinx skins, Ahri, and then other ones that required more money than Riot deserved for it. All these players played worse than bots, to the point where I'm starting to think they added in bots with the fancy skins as walking ads for them.
I love how they have an explanation for every mishap. They immediately call people to speak up for them, or quickly make "art" to prove that the recent layoffs have nothing to do with cost cutting in the design department and the broader operation of AI.
league is riged, forcing 50% wr
its basically a casino game now
gatcha skins, engagement matchmaking, come on guys
I suppose after my 14 years of playing, its high time to stop.
@@funky6942 dont worry , i stopped after 10 years, took me a while to realise game was playing me, with bad team mates when i was doing good and good team mates when i did bad,its not playable bro
I make mistakes at work most weeks, but I also don’t work at a billion dollar company that should have proper checks and balances in place for literally everything, especially given the enormous prices they charge for in game content
Ah yes my favorite adc Severe
I think it's also indicative of bad players in the art industry. I used to think AI was going to be a good thing that made art better and easier to make for artists, but now I'm starting to see why artists are so against it. because of the unethical/amoral who would use it for the money. What we need is much more rigorous checks/quality control to ensure art theft doesn't occur, and that any "artist" that is found to submit artwork that is theft is immediately blacklisted from the entire industry and can never get a commission again.
5:45 Akshually, thats ATLK, not ATLA
my favourite show, Avatar: The Last Korra
This just shows that we are no longer being able to distinguish real from AI. It is what it is and we have to begin to accept it.
I have alot of experience making Ai pictures. And when my gf showed me her mains were getting new skins, i got angry because it looks so much alike of the things i could make, an ameteur. Wtf is this. Their art used to have a proper standard.
"make" bro thinks he's a creator
@@starjadiancloneinvestigato1772 he is... dictionary too complicated, kid?
@starjadiancloneinvestigato1772 The whole thing about that comment is their lowered standard to the point of something amateur level stuff
@@starjadiancloneinvestigato1772 wow u so cool where do u live
If you ever watched old anime, you can literally see moments where charactters are duplicated, or they are missing entire fingers or even ENTIRE ARMS or extremities. It makes you think, how the helll did they not see that when they was doing it? But it happens.
Hopefully, their predatory gacha skins will allow them to hire a team that can actually make better skins and emotes!
Haha…
I just dont believe that over the process of making the emote, the sketching, base colour and then rendering they didn't notice the extra finger on the hand. Drawing hands have always been an issue among lots of artist, but making this kind of mistake seems so unreal.
Riot always talks about visual clarity in the game but shyvana and ambessa are the same. They need to change one of them.
As an artist, i can completely agree with the six fingers issue. I've already done it before... Well, i'm kinda newbie tho, just 4 years of drawing, but indeed i can really understand these mistakes being made in simple emotes.
seeing 6 fingers and instantly acussing them of using ai is such a wild acussation, I think it's a reflection on how paranoid everyone is on the matter imo
It's concerning, Riot is walking a fine line of losing who they are and ruining the franchise like Blizzard. I'm sure many say they already have but I don't think so quite yet.
Finally I have an excuse to leave lol
The next themed skins will be from The Princess Bride. "I'm not meaning to pry, but you don't happen to have six fingers on your hand?"
I think a lot of people have to realize the reason they HAD to implement the gatcha stuff was to be in standing the chinese law. Gatcha is okay, but loot boxes are considered gambling
With the ezreal point in question, his head itself is an extremely common pose not just used spash art but concept art aswell. 3 of the 6 skins also use the same head pose the only thing different between them is the angle in which the viewer is drawn from, I highly doubt they would use the psyops skin as reference over this and was just down to artist workflow with them drawing the face/head in they are most comfortable with.
I already consider you one of the bigs in the league community. You cover the drama in league the best!
Dude Riot made the most addictive game in history and funneled their money into departments to make it more addictive. Hopefully all these new age video game companies' executives face something after the millions of young men's lives they've ruined.
6:48 that BYEEEE at the end is 100x funnier and hilarious than meowing with an egirl voice at the end of the video 🤡yk who i mean
Having spent a lot of work constructing hands, yeah it's not a common mistake but it's an easy one to make depending on the process you go with. Like, if you're trying to go fast on a sketch there's all sorts of little anatomy details that can and do go wrong that someone else who is rushing a bit to get a bigger render done might miss too, and as every person working on that thing is on a deadline to get things ready for implementation that's a lot of chances for something to be missed even with a lot of eyes on it.
meanwhile epic games "WE GOT THE AI TIKTOK VOICE, WOOOOOO"
i do think sivirs name USED to be pronounced how we say it, but ever since they released azir, with her being a direct descendant of him, i think her name is pronounced like his is, and i have been saying it like that since
I am very apathetic to the use of ai. When it looks bad, it looks bad.
For things like the blatant blurry hands and whatnot, yeah it makes sense to bring it up, but many of Riot’s skins have been derivative for a decade. It feels odd that people need something like ai to get angry about unrelated long-standing problems, but it’s good that people are finally taking notice.
Hopefully the art team gets more respect and resources from the company in the future. I’m a firm believer that these folks just need the freedom to work with a reasonable timeline and proper direction from leadership that’s willing to spend the bare minimum on projects.
It should have been the best year ever for Riot Games with the release of Arcane.
Instead Riot has:
Started selling predatory, Fear of Missing Out, massively overpriced skins.
Fired a large amount of their (clearly) important staff.
Put staff that used to be important to League of Legends on other product development indefinitely, leading to an overall decline in quality of League of Legends itself.
Started using AI to fill the gaps.
Said they'll be trying to censor chat once again, locked behind honor levels; essentially adapting a social credit system in a game that was originally American made.
Added an intrusive, Root level anti-cheat that doesn't even really catch that much cheating and instead is mostly used to censor chat and monitor players while they are using Riot Games products.
Announced they'll basically be removing the play-to-earn reward skin system.
And this was all in one year. It has not been a good year for Riot, even though it easily should have been. All they had to do was not do literally any of the above things, except release Arcane.
I think in this case, the artists likely know what will be approved for splash arts and just cookie cut new splashes. If I had a deadline to make a high quality splash and I knew it would be likely shot down if I did something off the wall I might make a new one using a pre-existing one as the template. Like what ezreals looks like. The hand one looks like an oopsie that slipped through. I won't understand why they didn't catch the plagiarism of the fanart skins. That is much easier to catch
This makes me fearful for what the 2025 cinematic is going to be like. I hope it isn’t a garbled AI mess.
They don’t need many artists anymore when we have ai prompt art now.
Lets be real, there is not a single thing wrong with using AI for art. Eventually AI will be simply better than artists anyway.
People getting upset is beyond ridiculous.
I don't disagree with the use of AI in a working process, it can make you win a lot of time on a long project.
The only requirement is to at least correct the blunders made by the AI, otherwise it just seems like they asked a bot to do it, they publish it, and then they get a lot of money out of it despite real designers who work very hard for way better results.
Here is the DIY of how to use AI in your work :
- Have a good idea of what you want and prompt it to the AI
- Take multiple propositions and choose which ones you want to keep
- Remove unnecessary stuff, add cool things & correct AI mistakes
- Get a feedback
- Do the normal stuffs that occurs normally in the usual scenario of your job
To do a parallel with league, it's way better if you have a friend who you can count on to grind with even if he does mistakes and that you have to correct them, than to play with a guy that eloboosts you (in this case the elobooster is'nt better than your firend but you got the idea).
the only none slop content thing riot has implemented in recent times is the production of arcane, their skins have gotten sloppy, their updates have gotten sloppy, and that emote is absolutely their fault lmao i don't get why people are rushing to the defense of this, if it isn't ai and truly is just an artist mistake it's an embarassing mistake to make for a job you're being paid for and speaks to the quality they have been providing as of late.
Why are we pretending the remade Zyra and Evelynn drawings are worse? Don't get me wrong I really don't like riot games and I think they are a shitty shady company. But riot's version is definitely more polished and refined. Is it to support the original artist, or some moral reason?
All skins should be Gacha .. EZ Win for Rito ~ 😎🍻
honestly im shocked that they even introduced the ability to get free skins. i have no idea how much money they missed out on by doing something that no one would ever seriously suggest or expect. Now its being toned down its obvious theres going to be a spike of disgruntled players but it was good while it lasted. Saying its a regression is technically true, but if you give me a cake and half way through eating it you take it away, i still got half a cake out of nowhere. sounds kind of greedy to demand the other half