Level 5 boss apologises for AI use for Professor Layton, Yo-Kai Watch reveals

Level-5 president and CEO Akihiro Hino has taken to X to address the criticism levelled on the company for its Level 5 Vision event where it was noticed that generative AI was used during the presentation. The event featured games from beloved series such as Professor Layton and Yo-Kai Watch. Here’s the lengthy statement that Mr. Hino wrote on X via machine translation:

“It seems that some people have become concerned about the content of the project because AI was used in some of the video footage shown during the event, so I’d like to explain the situation.

Quite simply, we wanted to make the presentation more spectacular, and as part of an experiment, we incorporated some of the latest AI technology into the production process. However, it appears that this made some people uncomfortable, and for that, I sincerely apologise.

That said, at our company, everything that contributes to the appeal and individuality of our released games—including the scenarios, character designs, and fundamental settings—is created entirely by people.

The AI-driven efficiency improvements we are pursuing are primarily focused on digitising creative work that has already been created by humans. For example, using AI to accurately convert original artwork into polygons for 3D models. There will be no careless or unrefined AI-generated output incorporated into our released games, so please rest assured.

In fact, the time saved through AI-assisted efficiency improvements is allowing our creators to spend more time on the truly creative aspects of development. As a result, I believe the finished products are reaching a level that will satisfy you even more than before.

Ultimately, we are currently experimenting and working hard toward a plan to reduce the development time for major titles from around five years to just two.

However, I cannot deny that this time we made extensive use of AI because we wanted to deliver a presentation that was easy to understand and visually spectacular.

We will take this experience as a lesson and use it to improve going forward. We hope you’ll look forward to Level-5’s next presentation.”

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