Never before have we seen so much goodwill so quickly squandered: This week, Larian CEO Swen Vincke repeatedly dug his heels in on the issue of AI following a poorly received interview during which he talked about how his studio – fresh off the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, a meticulously crafted feat of human ingenuity – employs it. He went so far as to suggest that “everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it,” which is almost certainly untrue. On the latest Aftermath Hours, we discuss the myriad reasons someone working in games might not want to object to their boss’ ill-advised edict these days.
This time around, we convene for our final show of 2025, a notably horrible year for the world but a pretty solid one for Aftermath. We begin by talking about a controversy that was unexpected, to say the least: Larian openly embracing AI. Vincke has spent the past several days both digging his heels in and doing damage control, but the furor continues. Will the studio change its ways? Or will those of us opposed to AI have a difficult decision to make when Larian’s next and apparently biggest game, Divinity, comes out in… probably still a lot of years?
Then we hand out our first ever Stuff Of The Year awards to the games, trends, events, people, cats, nontroversies, and everything else that defined our 2025. Finally, we come up with a rock-solid concept for Aftermath Muppets.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can force a still-human Luke to exasperatedly put up with our Muppet antics all day.
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Nathan: This is part of the larger story of video game industry precarity. If you are not OK with how your studio is implementing AI, you’re probably not gonna make a fuss about it, because you could lose your job. Right now, everyone in the games industry is jobless, so that’s your one lifeline, and if you lose it, you might be cooked. Especially Larian being a studio where a lot of people had to move for those jobs, you are just not going to risk it.
So [Vincke] is like “Yeah, everyone’s fine with it,” I don’t think they actually are. You’re a boss speaking for everyone at your company, and your company employs hundreds of people. Like, come on.
Chris: And a lot of people had to go through, like, 20 job interviews. Don’t forget. A lot of people had to go through a really bad hiring process.
Nathan: Yeah, writers especially. For people who watch or listen to the show but aren’t on Bluesky, a lot of writers this week talked about how it’s an open secret in the games industry that the job application process for Larian in particular is just a fucking nightmare. You’ve gotta do tons and tons of interviews. It takes months. You’ve gotta do a writing test that includes playable elements.
Chris: It’s uncompensated.
Nathan: Yep, it’s uncompensated. And then they might not get back to you for a really long time, only to let you know that they’re going with somebody else. It’s this thing that every writer in the industry will tell you about. It seems entirely miserable.
But yeah, so you have all of this precarity and a boss speaking for the company, as well as all these employees who I’m sure would want to say something if they felt safe doing so. [It’s notable, also, that former employees have come forward on social media to say they did, in fact, have a problem with AI.] And then all of that ties back into the AI conversation: People are worried about losing their already less-than-secure jobs to AI, specifically. You have this example of how precarious things are and how that’s already muzzling them, and it’s just a fucked-up stew with every conceivable ingredient of the ills of the games industry right now.
Chris: At what is ostensibly the good company. That’s what makes it hurt most: They’re the good guys, technically.
Nathan: Or they were.
Chris: Where have all the cowboys gone, man?
Recommended
Luke Plunkett
