Wizards of the Coast has come under fire for admitting to using AI artwork in a recent campaign for its hit card series, Magic: The Gathering. Ironically, the American gaming company had issued a release at the end of 2023, reiterating its commitment to the use of real artwork and calling on its many artists and creators “to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products.” But apparently that sentiment didn’t apply to ad campaigns — namely backgrounds, which fans quickly took to social media to call out.
“Lmao. They lasted all of 2 weeks,” wrote user Nick Dobos via X. “But imagine how happy the shareholders were when they laid off all those folks right before Christmas so they can use AI and lie about it,” added Archaeology Bird.
I guess the whole ad campaign was made with A/I generated imagery, then retouched to give it a semblance of man-made craft. pic.twitter.com/St5bXhcXfu
— MarcoMaps Bernardini (@MarcoMA4PS) January 6, 2024
One of the images in question features Magic’s new series, Ravnica Remastered, which utilized AI to generate the background and was slightly retouched with the cards in place, along with ridding any inaccuracies throughout the composition. “Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI,” WotC said via X.
“As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image. While the art came from a vendor, it’s on us to make sure that we are living up to our promise to support the amazing human ingenuity that makes Magic great. We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products.”
While this isn’t the first time WotC has used AI in its marketing — they previously did so with a campaign featuring Lara Croft this past November and another regarding Dungeons & Dragons several months prior — it does come as a shock to fans given Magic was one of the companies that criticized Midjourney for a breach in IP.
