Blizzard investigates claims that future Hearthstone heros skins are AI-generated

Blizzard is investigating claims that the pixel art designs of new Hearthstone Skins, which will be released as part The Great Dark Beyond extension, were created using generative AI.

The skins are not yet released or even officially announced, but they were datamined as part of the patch 31.0 earlier this month. The initial response was positive - they do look cool at first glance, after all - but on October 26, 1000_toasters published a thread on X stating their belief that these images were AI generated.

The thread was deleted after 1000_toasters stated that they had made their point. They also asked followers not to harass the artist or blizzard staff. But, not before Hearthstone content creator Zeddy covered it on YouTube and preserved it.

The AI claim has been well argued. The Hearthstone images are suspect in small ways - Malfurion's wrong shoulder tattoo, for example - but it's when you look closer at the artist Trey Fore that there are real red flags.

As 1000_toasters said, some images on Fore’s Instagram are "absolute AI Classics": the wrong number of hands, misaligned weapons shafts, objects under what they should go over, and that sort of thing. "You can find tons and tons of little details that don't make any sense in their artworks, and things that an artist would never draw," 1000_toasters wrote.

Imik, a Hearthpwn author, noticed some other oddities on their own thread. Malfurion has the wrong shoulder tattoo. His horns, hair, and the symbol on Doomhammer’s Doomhammer are also off. Yes, it's small details, but the devil is in the details.

Blizzard was alerted to the situation fairly quickly. Community manager RidiculousHat stated on Reddit, X and Reddit that the Hearthstone Team is aware of this claim and will investigate it this week. The current situation is that there's no smoking gun but a strong smell of cordite in the air.

No matter how Blizzard's probe turns out, these allegations are another example of AI paranoia, and the reflexive suspicion that follows. The question of "authenticity" is more important than quality or intention, and this has left us, the fans and users, with a mess. Wizards of the Coast for example, was forced into admitting that generative AI had been used to create a piece of Magic: The Gathering promo art, only a few weeks after adamantly denying the claim.

The issue is not that AI-generated artwork is "bad", although it is often bad, but that the human element is removed from artistic creation. Harvey Randall, a staff writer at the New York Times, said that "there is no mystery as to how an AI created a beautiful night-sky unless you are unfamiliar with the technology--it was taught on a dataset containing thousands of night skies and then it made an informed guess." It also eliminates jobs, more practically: As companies are able to produce dozens of acceptable images with just generation software and a well-defined prompt. Artists, people with actual skills, vision and intention, will be left behind.

Even game companies that aren't looking to reduce their payroll have to deal with issues when it comes to hiring outside artists. They need to make sure they're not just churning out stuff with an image creator and a prompt. They're the ones who "create" and, most importantly, sell the products in question. It is their responsibility to resolve this issue. This AI paranoia is partly due to the fact that it is so difficult. We should get used to this, even though it is frustrating.

I've contacted Blizzard fore and 1000_toasters to get their comments. I will update this post if I hear back.