The maker of the digital trading card game Champions of Otherworldly Magic says it spent $90,000 on the card art, all of which was paid to an “AI artist” who spent two full working days on the project. Receives $15,000 per month despite low break-even. every month.
“We pay our AI artist 15,000 USD per month for 10 hours of work,” reads an X post from the official Champions TCG account. “Why? In that time, he still creates hundreds of amazing works of art—astronomically faster than any team of traditional artists.
“Its art is 100% AI generated, yet there are no extra fingers, no generic designs, no glitches… it has constant evolution, skins, alt art styles—literally. No one is on his level. We don’t care how he makes it, we just care that the end user enjoys our game.”
According to Miles Malick, co-founder and CEO of Champions TCG, who spoke to PC Gamer on DM, the artist created more than 1,000 images with Generative AI over the course of six months, and was paid $15K per month. were done. They say the anonymous artist has “15 years of digital art experience” and doesn’t use social media.
“For us to achieve this with a team of traditional artists would cost us a lot of money and time,” said Malek. “The guy is a pro and he gets what he’s worth. We’re well entrenched in the space and nobody comes close to the quality he delivers.”
According to Malik, the champions have made “about $500K” in card sales so far. That’s because its cards are NFTs that can be traded or bought with cryptocurrency, but the developer also sells “gems” — which can be traded for card packs — Instead of regular US dollars, and credit card transactions where most of the revenue has come from so far.
The card images aren’t exactly “100%” AI ready, as the X post says. Malek says they’ve also been touched by hand: “The AI can do most of the work/pre-production but everything has to be edited and filtered to make sure there are no mistakes, extra fingers, etc. need to.”
A complete collection of Champions cards can be found on his website. The illustrations occasionally get into trouble with claws and claws, and each one looks more or less like something you’ve seen before — some unusually so — but they’re passable. Someone who didn’t know they were AI generated might think they were just normal Blizzard or Riot inspired cards.
The game’s official X account is defending the card images today. Responding to a user who said that a kindergartner could do what their AI prompt boy does, the champions account said “It’s crazy to ignore his skills and talents.”
I personally struggle to believe that anyone would pay $1,500 an hour for this job, regardless of whether or not it requires skill and talent, but other than that, I understand. The big picture is that we have quickly passed the theoretical stage of creative AI’s impact. In the ‘It’s happening now’ phase on games. AI-generated images have also appeared in marketing materials from major game publishers, including Magic: The Gathering maker Wizards of the Coast, but unlike some of those companies, the Champions developer has apologized for using a tool that many People consider immoral.
Instead, the company challenged artists to complete a series of “art tests” in 48 hours, and claimed that anyone who met the criteria for its AI prompt writer would be their assistant. will be considered for employment.
We pay our AI artist 15,000 USD per month for 10 hours of work. Why? In that time, he still creates hundreds of amazing works of art – astronomically faster than any team of traditional artists. His art is 100% AI generated, yet has no extra fingers, no normal… https://t.co/IlAhJ2pdnp pic.twitter.com/a2TJcLLhsPApril 8, 2024