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Saber, the developer behind the upcoming Rideshare “Stimulator” video game, is being accused of replacing its writers with AI.
The accusation was made Tuesday by Stella Sacco, who says she was fired back in December 2023 while the game was still under development.
“I was lead writer on this one! And Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development,” Sacco wrote on Bluesky.
“All the passenger voices were AI too,” she added. “Either they changed direction at some point or they’re not disclosing it on Steam.”
Initially, Saber CEO Matthew Karch denied the allegations in unremarkable fashion.
“Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI,” he told The Verge, referring to the development studio and game engine maker it’s partnered with.
But as the drama grew, so did his temper. In a fiery statement this Thursday to This Week In Video Games, he lashed out and demeaned Sacco, making vicious and petulant remarks about her time at the company. He came off, in other words, like a complete sociopath.
“Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her,” he fumed. “We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set.”
“As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later,” he continued. “From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
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