Call of Duty AI Disclosure Causes Issues With Steam Policies
Call Of Duty has been making a lot of news recently with the disclosure of content that was AI generated appearing on the Steam page of Call of Duty. With a message reading on Steam saying, “rur team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets.” Which comes many months after the community had many different speculations about whether the AAA developer was using such tools to create cosmetics. Many different anonymous artists have also come out and said some packs, such as “Yokai’s Wrath” premium pack used these AI tools to make some of the assets.
Having a disclosure like this proves that the speculations are true, especially after the Winter 2024 Zombie loading screen was shown to have a few extra fingers than normal. While many players want to avoid the use of AI altogether, the vague disclosure of “help develop some in-game assets.” Does nothing and has gamers wanting to point the fault at Activision. However, who is truly to be put at blame? Is it Activision for wanting to use AI in the first place, and making sure the requirement is vague on purpose, or for Steam ensuring that the requirement of disclosing AI is too vague?
Bringing up the winter loading screen in 2024 again. This picture was the first that many players started to see that there is something very wrong with certain assets within Call of Duty. This picture was bounced around all over social media, but mostly taken to X (formally known as Twitter) describing all that is wrong with it. This picture showed Santa Clause as a zombie reaching to grab the player from the screen. The first thing that many players note, of course, is the extra finger on the zombie Santa Claus on his reaching hand. The other issue is that the other hand that is on the presents had an extra thumb. At first, many players chalked this up to the fact that the zombie Santa had mutated since it was a zombie. However, many players did not accept this and assumed that it was made with AI. Many months later, players finally did learn that Activision did use AI on the zombie santa loading screen. This was only the start to a vicious downward spiral for Activision.
The other account that was made is that the calling card “Hard Breakup” was also shown to be a huge topic. The Reddit user Poodonkus expresses how not only was the challenge hard to complete, which is performing 7 finishing moves in a single match. The calling card was made from an AI generation. Poondonkus further explains “I am so disappointed.” The most notable remark in his post was “notably the sleeve of the character’s shirt and the shape of her hair.” When players look up this calling card they can see that most of the art within the calling card matches each other. The sleeve on the character does in fact match her hair just being a different color. Poodonkus finishing his post says “Treyarch, look into this. I don’t deserve to be rewarded with half-hearted soulless fake art after completing a challenge this difficult. Remake this calling card, hell trace it if you have to. But give us players more respect than this.”
While Poondonkus is just one Reddit user, the rest of the Call Of Duty fanbase can make their own testimonies of how Call Of Duty is lacking in every other category as well. The lack of care within the fan base shows, and many players are becoming undervalued and feeling like the hard work they put in doesn’t matter anymore. If Activision were to implement more care and willingness to please their fanbase, many players would defend Call of Duty more.
The full term of the disclosure made by Activision has become a main source of topic. When gamers discuss the disclosure the terms that it uses are extremely vague and do not fully express what is being AI created. Having a more defined understanding of how AI is being used can really help gamers make more sound decisions versus being lied to and expecting one thing versus another. This would then force Activision to make changes that would please the fanbase. Most of the gamers within Call of Duty do not want AI-created content since it does take away from what Call of Duty was.
Since January, Steam took an extended break to change policies that would cover any kind of content art/sound/code and such that uses AI tools to create these items. Steam also said that it needed “some time to learn about the fast-moving and legally murky space.” Which shows how committed Steam is to ensure players are given true valuable content. When a developer is to publish a game, they must fill out a form. This form is broken down into various sections. These sections are:
- General
- Mature
- Generative Artificial Intelligence Content
- Pre-Generated
- Live-Generated
Filling out the form within the last part truly shows how serious Steam is to the release of AI generated content. Which proves to be a huge issue with Call of Duty. Within the form as well, it does focus on how Live-Generated AI content. Which shows how Activision was able to get away with so much because they were able to say most of their content was pre-generated.
In the future we can only hope that Steam continues to take a charge towards supporting players rather than their own legal base. Changing policies to ensure players fully understand what games will include, such as Call of Duty and AI content. Even for a AAA developer like Activision having artists create content should mean more than using AI to make their players feel like they matter. Until then, players are all constantly left to wonder if AI will stay, and if it does, what does that mean for all of the future content? Will it be half quality like it is now or will it improve? Will players be finally able to have a voice in what they want to see again? Until then players are stuck in this massive swamp called “AI.”
Faith Lane is a Christian self-published author and journalist who has a passion for video games. Some of her favorite games consist of Pokemon, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Hello Kitty Island Adventure, Minecraft, and more.
