Lies of P, unusual problems in AI, Roblox lawsuits, a Venba copycat, and more

This week in freelance

Hi, folks!

Thank you all for the support in subscribing to Save Spot. I’m excited that so many of you are excited to keep up with me while I continue to freelance. It’s been a challenging week personally — got some bad news about my shoulder — but an exciting week professionally. I published five stories total, and that includes one new byline, on The Guardian. It’s one of those places I’ve been reading for quite some time; what Keza MacDonald has done with the games section is incredible. Always a must read for me.

It’s been busy, so I’m going to keep this one short. But I expect to start writing more in-depth about writing about the video game industry — specifically as a freelance journalist — next week.

Here’s what I’ve published this week:

Video game developers are being accused of using AI – even when they aren’t

Generative AI is creating a new, unusual problem for game developers. Some of them are being accused of using it, even they say they’re not. A lot of players are concerned about the ethical implications of AI; they don’t want to play video games that are using it. That’s fine: It’s good to be skeptical and make sure the media you consume aligns with your vales. But the creative well has been poisoned by generative AI, and it’s hurting everyone. Trust between creatives and players is more important than ever.

Aspiring game developers in Fortnite and Roblox keep suing each other

For Game File, I wrote legal disputes between Fortnite creators. The big story here is about the red vs. blue genre on Fortnite. It’s a common genre, but the top red vs. blue developer has filed two separate copyright lawsuits trying to get two games taken down.

Roblox accused of allowing sexual exploitation in four separate lawsuits

I’ve been following a series of lawsuits filed against Roblox for its alleged role in sexual exploitation of children for some time. This story for Aftermath pulled together all four of those lawsuits, plus details from other criminal complaints. These sorts of things are never fun to report out, but they’re important stories. Roblox is so interesting to cover for me, because I see the value of it for both its players and creatives. But, at the same time, you can’t ignore the very real safety issues.

This game sure looks a lot like Venba

I saw a post from developer Visai Games the other day, calling out a copycat game that totally whitewashes its BAFTA-winning game Venba. Like, it copies the cooking mechanic and uses it to make stuff like peanut butter and jelly.

"I wouldn't have thought [Venba] was an easy game to clone. If I had to guess, I think the art style and low-stakes gameplay must have made [Global Advertising Network] think there's a market for a cozy, frictionless cooking sim with warm and approachable colours,” Visai Games founder Abhi Swaminathan told me. “For us, the art style and design are meant to contrast with the heavier themes of the story, so it's really interesting to see someone just take one part of that and run with it.”

Bucking the industry trend of post-launch layoffs, Lies of P devs received $7,500 bonuses, Switch 2s

There’s so much bad news in the video game industry, so it was surprising and exciting to hear that Lies of P developer Round8 Studio was celebrating the game’s release and DLC by giving its employees an early bonus. Round8 Studio head Jason Park told me that was just a portion of the overall bonuses employees will get early next year.