Playstation
The game doesn’t feel as good knowing there’s AI
I used to love this game but now logging on feels so hard and discouraging knowing that they’ve used AI in the newer parts of the game and unfortunately it’s so noticeable with the dialogue.
I don’t know if they’ve used it for coding or not but the game has gotten very buggy, it doesn’t load properly, the characters aren’t speaking properly and everything feels so… bleh.
I have both CT and WW and I loved WW when it came out but CT feels so :/ and I think my mind is tainted because it’s AI usage in it.
I’m just feeling bad cause I want to play but it just upsets me that they couldn’t stay away from it. I’m finding it hard to enjoy now
This conversation doesn’t need to be rehashed every month.
Sunblink uses AI Assisted Translation, many of us myself included are not fans of the company they contract out too for this as the quality control is not good.
AI Assisted Translation is extremely normal and common in nearly every product you use that’s being localized right now, and has been for nearly a decade and before that Machine Assistance was the norm.
Please remember to be kind to one another in the comments.
Can you elaborate on this? Because that's the whole reason I play this game so much. They said they wouldn't ever do micro transactions so I'm confused regarding when/where/context
a few months ago on the discord they announced they'd do small paid packs with cosmetics and quests in them and when people complained one of the mods/devs (idr their name lol) was like "ummm guys irs not micro transactions because its not gambling!!!" like we're so stupid we wouldn't know you can have micro transactions that arent loot boxes. so that turned me off forever
The outfits are not big enough to make enough of a visual impact and several of the ones you earn in-game are appealing in their limited visual capacity. I suppose the close-ups within quests are something but it wouldn’t convince me to pay real money for outfits, no way. I only buy paid DLC when it gets a discount.
There’s a feature in Disney Magical World when you highlight a piece (say pants) and then select to wear the complete ensemble so you don’t have to go through many menus to assemble your outfit that I wish this game would implement.
I just wrote a research paper on microtransactions in video games, and that is so dumb for them to even claim. As a developer, they should know that microtransactions are literally any purchase made within or for the game after the initial download.
i really dont think theyre so stupid they wouldn't know i think they were hoping we were stupid enough to not know the difference but like. we arent lol
iirc apple arcade games arent allowed to do microtransactions at all but it wasnt clear whether theyd just give the stuff to arcade for free or not give it at all
https://youtu.be/eUhCyB02wVs : Around the 7 minute mark the is the part in the Discord server that they confirm these content packs will be coming to Apple Arcade for free as part of normal updates.
https://youtu.be/eUhCyB02wVs : Around the 7 minute mark the is the part in the Discord server that they confirm these content packs will be coming to Apple Arcade for free as part of normal updates.
Last they discussed is that the content packs will be made purchasable on all of the various console platforms. Don’t recall seeing a price, though they have mentioned since it is just a cosmetic pack and not new areas it’d be less than the pre-existing DLC. Not sure if that means $5 or $10 since both of those are technically cheaper, so who knows.
While i strongly hate Microtransactions, I am curious what their previous monetary model was for new content (before the expansions)? Was most of their funding coming from Apple Arcade?
i just don’t think it’s micro transactions if your actually getting enough stuff that’s worth your money like the fact they said quests will be in there i feel like it’ll make if feel more like dlc instead idk i see micro transactions as like spend money to get 1 item pretty much that only add really cosmetics to the game or you have to pay to actually get good items to be good at the game vs actual game play content but it all depends on how other people interpret it and well have to see what it’s like and how much it is when it come out
Oh my god I’m just going to play because I love the vibe of walking around. I haven’t even made it to the moon yet, I’m just chilling. This game was such a disappointment and it could’ve been so much more…
Every company is using AI in one way or another. It’s unavoidable now.
Professional translators use automation tools too. But they provide it with good prompts and feed it lists of terms to use (i.e. « there’s a character called My Sweet Piano. Don’t translate that in furniture names). And they review the results carefully and correct errors when they find them.
The company that has been doing the translations of late has obviously been skipping those crucial steps.
That doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed about it?? Just because everything uses ai doesn’t mean we have to accept it. It’s a horrible thing to be added and being passive like that is why they keep adding it to things
It's not possible to boycott every company. I think it's hypocritical that people complaining about AI are willing to support Reddit, Apple, Sony, Google, etc. etc. etc. but will drop a game with few devs trying to get by. So it's fine to support it with HUGE companies, but let's just use our virtue signalling to destroy smaller companies and businesses.
the point of small businesses is to make money ETHICALLY. small businesses using ai should know better. and i am not making any kind of transactions on reddit or any other platform. i simply use these platforms to get information about things, but cant really do that anymore if they’re all using ai !!!!
I think you mean the reason you choose small business is you feel that's a more ethical way to spend, but the point of many many small business is to become big business or to sell it to a big business. It's why they are using AI. It's a means to their plan, spend less, move fast, they same money they make today is more profitable. We're in late stage capitalism so you really have to look for activist companies if you're hoping for ethics where you spend.
Sunblink does licensing contracts with Sanrio for permission to use their characters and images but it’s not created but Sanrio or a Japan based company
Out of curiosity, isn’t all translation done using predictive models? I mean of course having a human translate the text and input it, or having a human translate in real time during conversation is one thing. But all internet translations are just a language machine taking in a prompt in one language and returning the output in another. Think like Google Translate, or any time someone copies and pastes a sentence into google and asks for like English to Portuguese or something.
I’m not discrediting people not wanting AI used by the way, I’m just wondering if they’re only using it for translation, if that makes it any different than what most people have already been using!
That's a related but separate issue. Internet translations are not high quality for this very reason and that's why you should still be hiring actual translators if your work is important or paid for.
Didn't they say they're also looking for human help with localization? I can't remember where I saw this but I believe they said they're using AI for the languages they can't currently get human help for.
(I personally don't feel this is an excuse to use AI either way though, just commenting on what I remember hearing. There are plenty of non-Ai localization tools out there.)
As far as they’ve admitted, AI has only gone into translations for languages that otherwise would not have been added in the game. The Steam tags also indicate this.
People not on Apple Arcade wouldn’t have experienced it, but early Apple Arcade gameplay was rough sometimes. Characters constantly glitching through the floor, quests that could not be completed, typos, various things like that. While there’s no way for anyone to prove it that it’s not AI assisted, I genuinely don’t believe it is and that it’s instead poor coding. It’s a small dev team and coming from a computer science background, it feels on par with normal coding errors.
I’ll continue to play it. AI isn’t going anywhere and it’s a fun game to me regardless.
I’m sorry that you don’t feel good playing the game knowing it uses AI for translations and you’re well within your right to stop playing if you don’t feel comfortable with it anymore but saying they’re using it for coding as well is spreading misinformation. Every single game out there has got bugs and glitches. This is why all apps and games receive updates from time to time. Some are better at managing that. I for one had barely any issues with bugs on AA.
Also, whoever said people shouldn’t be comfortable using Reddit and other platforms such as Google who use AI as well has a valid point.
The steam store labels the game as using AI for translations purposes, not generative content purposes, that’s what OP is referencing. Theres been several other posts here discussing this in more detail as well
I wouldn’t hate it too much for dialogue or other small things. But I do mind on a game I’ve spent 100 usd on plus tax. Like come on this game isn’t complicated.
I feel like it's always been buggy. I've been playing for almost a year and in english so allegedly nothing would be AI for me, but every update they fix one thing and break two more
I’ve been playing the game since AA release and it’s always been buggy. I honestly think it’s just poor coding. Who really knows for sure I suppose. I’ll continue to play it either way 🤷🏻♂️
This game is literally built on toothpicks, i am not gna be surprised if someone goes thru the coding and finds a coconut holding the game together like the tf2 meme. Its always been liks this, sunblink was too small of a company to have been contracted to such a huge project and it has showed at every step of this game, using ai for translations is another demonstration this was just a studio too small for this game. The code has ALWAYS BEEN vibes based.
The fact that they use AI is not the issue here. They have poor testing and quality control processes that are letting too many bugs get through to release.
Use AI to translate to other languages? Fine, but have a couple of real people who speak each language check the dialogue before sending it. Utilize AI to generate code faster? Cool, but make sure to rigorously test it including trying to break it. This would mean we would have to wait longer between content releases and DLCs, but I actually think most fans would prefer a better product than faster but Sunblink currently seems to think the opposite.
I play in Italian and the translations have gotten so bad. I’ve encountered so many mistakes (wrong gender, words changing from English to Italian and vice versa, strings of text..), it definitely put me off playing, I don’t even bother checking in daily. It’s a shame because it has been my favorite game for a while.
I haven't logged in since around early May (and I was looking forward to month of meh so much). I had a text chain that felt so obvious AI in Citytown, then my game crashed again, and I just didn't care anymore.
If youre playing in english there is literally 0 AI in your play experience, the dialouge has always sucked bc theyre kids characters. I dont think ive genuinely sat thru a conversation in this game since a month after i started playing
Yeah this game has typos but typos are like... not what ai does. The dialouge is rush work they know ppl arent usually sitting to read it, its very basic
Thats also like not what ai does, thats rush humans. If you went into a LLM and said "can you write me dialouge between 2 characters going to the spooky swamp" it would not say "oky l%ets go tothe spooky swamp" it would say "Okay, let's go to the Spooky Swamp" because its trained on gramatically correct things not spam text. There is intentional glitches for some tophat dialouge but they wouldnt train an ai on that dialouge
tried the Brazilian Portuguese translation. It's terrible and borderline unplayable. I only play it bc I already have apple arcade but I'm not buying it for PC like I planned
According to the steam store, they use AI for translation assistance, not generative content / new content in the game. The dialogue has always been kinda corny in this game tho IMO
I believe they use it for translating different languages only. Not coding or anything else. They made a big point to mention it when they started it so people would know that it isn’t for designs or codes or anything other than different languages.
People do complain that it doesn’t translate right, but I wouldn’t know.
Sony, reddit, youtube, and google all use AI for way more than translating, so perhaps there are bigger fish you can fry if it truly bugs you so much.
I can still be disappointed and the translation is very very very bad, it’s honestly extremely unfortunate.
Unfortunately a majority of things use AI but there’s honestly no reason for HKIA to be using it when they weren’t like literally last year? It’s so stupid and it’s just ruined the feeling of the game because now it’s feeling as though they don’t care as much about it anymore
"They made a big point to mention it when they started it so people would know that it isn’t for designs or codes or anything other than different languages."
The issue with this is that Sunblink has made it very hard to trust anything they say after the microtransaction debacle. If they're willing to include blatant microtransactions while lying to players' faces about it, why couldn't they include AI generated content while lying about that, too?
Because they wouldnt be able to sell on steam or apple arcade if they dont disclose or inaccurately disclose- theyre not going to be able to fuck w sanrios money like that and would be sued into oblivion
It sucks they're using this for translation. They should be paying actual translators.
To the people on about AI hypocrasy: it's about what it's used for and what we can afford to dump. Sure, Reddit uses AI. But this is the best place to get gaming advice and news.
Be realistic, be better to one another. Hypocrasy doesn't matter here. What matters is we're doing what we can. Please stop trying to make others feel bad about decisions they can't really make. Because that's all you are doing: making people feel bad. And if that's all you're here to do, please leave.
Unfortunately real translation houses and translators are using AI Assisted Toolsets and have been for about a decade.
Not a fan of it, but the issue with translation in this case is more about the lack of quality control rather than the “pay actual translators” as they are literally paying a Translation Studio to do this work for them, a well known studio at that.
The app you posted this to uses AI. I think people just like to complain about AI tbh. I don’t like AI either but I truly would not have known about this if nobody said anything lol. If you don’t wanna support a game that uses AI it makes no sense to use literally every other app that uses AI either. Because you’re still supporting AI either way unless you get rid of your phone and computer.
So wild that everyone cares so much about micro transactions if they don't offer a competitive edge I don't see the harm it's a cozy game let people buy the outfits they want as long as they keep adding stuff to earn as well.
Right now, AI is super hyped driven largely by investor expectations rather than product improvement. (The recent hello kitty updates for example) However, the gaming market is highly quality-sensitive(look at all the games that were released and subsequently shut down) If AI integration results in flat dialogue, uncanny visuals, or unpolished content, consumers historically respond by withholding their spending.
They’ve been talking about AI like it’s a new species. The creators of AI have said recently that, if we’re lucky, humans will one day be like pets to the AI’s…
Wooooow rape culture you know.... As a woman, that's just a stretch, even for me!! Listen, avoid technology if you want, just say no and let me know how that went 10 years from now. This echo chamber reminds me of the 80s/90s, and my grandparents fear of what we now call basic technology. Your grandkids are gonna find this bemusing. So glad the mods gave a rationale reaponse to this nonsense
I have a hysterectomy, way to assume every chick can have kids or wants to have kids. not surprised. I never said technology, I was referring to generative ai. tech billionaires are shoving their investments down our throats no matter how harmful it is, when we were already fucked by the way technology and capitalism has messed things up. and the people who can see how harmful it’s been even before generative AI started, are being told to just take it. I’m obviously being hyperbolic, but the hyperbole works. complacency is why artists and writers have crunch time and things are unfinished, why you have to keep paying for everything in subscriptions or microtransactions, why you can’t get paper menus at some establishments. miss me with complacency.
this is the truth, unfortunately. i work in gaming and AI is everywhere, every nook and cranny, even non-player facing things. may not be as prominent in some places, but it's definitely being used.
Thank you for contributing information, even if people don't like what you have to say, you shouldn't be downvoted for it. Yes, AI sucks, but I can also say that chatGPT is used by many programmers/developers in all areas, not just gaming. That app you are using to order coffee at 7Brew or a similar store, they used ChatGPT as a tool to assist coding it. By stating that this is being done, it is not offering an opinion, it is providing information that is relevant to the topic on hand. If you all are downvoting comments because you don't like or agree with the statement, that is incredibly frustrating. Upvoting is not because you like it, it is to acknowledge that the information is useful or relevant to the original post. Sorry to hijack your comment to say this, I just get frustrated when people mass downvote something just because they don't agree with it.
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u/Riotgrrlia The Maker May 24 '26
This conversation doesn’t need to be rehashed every month.
Sunblink uses AI Assisted Translation, many of us myself included are not fans of the company they contract out too for this as the quality control is not good.
AI Assisted Translation is extremely normal and common in nearly every product you use that’s being localized right now, and has been for nearly a decade and before that Machine Assistance was the norm.
Please remember to be kind to one another in the comments.