Rideshare “Stimulator” was revealed nearly two weeks ago in a short trailer teasing its gig-economy driving-sim satire. But most people probably didn’t hear about it until its former lead writer accused publisher Saber Interactive of replacing her with ChatGPT “midway through development.” Saber Interactive went on to deny that claim, but now its CEO, Matthew Karch, has confirmed he would have done so “in retrospect.” He blasted the former Saber developer while promoting AI in a new personal statement on the controversy that admits generative AI is used in the game.
Earlier this week, narrative designer Stella Sacco, who was a lead writer at Saber Interactive on Stuntman Hollywood and other games until 2024, claimed that Saber had replaced her with generative AI tools and was not disclosing the plagiarism tech’s involvement in development on the Rideshare “Stimulator” Steam page. Sacco added that the decision to implement AI came from Saber, the game’s publisher, and not Unigine, its developer.
Saber Interactive later pushed back in a statement to PC Gamer. “Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game,” a representative for the company said. However, they did confirm generative AI was being used for the game’s previously undisclosed “free ride” mode. “The game will also feature an experimental, free-ride mode that by necessity incorporates AI as the number of passengers in the game is infinite,” the spokesperson added.
Sacco responded to the response by doubling down. “I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn’t once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game,” she told PC Gamer. Sacco proceeded to elaborate on social media: “My boss, to his credit, argued over and over with the c-level who pushed the AI—’we already have Stella and she’s funny and she’s good at this, she’s done live games before so live ops are no problem,’ etc—but the suit insisted “gamers love new tech” so using AI would be ‘great marketing.’”
Karch has now weighed in directly on the matter in a new statement to This Week In Video Games. The Saber CEO personally attacked the former Saber developer as being replaced by “someone more talented,” but didn’t deny that generative AI is involved in “certain parts of the game,” which will eventually be disclosed on Rideshare’s Steam page.
“Stella who?” Karch’s statement to TWIVG began. “I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. 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.”
He continued:
Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.
We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers.
As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. 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.
Sacco followed by claiming that Karch was “lashing out” due to not wanting people to know the extent to which AI was used in the game. “Everything I said was true,” she added. “Here’s more truth: that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber’s reputation than it ever could mine. This screed will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand.”
The controversy, and how Karch has dealt with it, certainly hasn’t helped Saber on the Rideshare Steam page. An otherwise quiet discussion section is now full of people arguing over the game’s use of AI for certain aspects and its failure to disclose that on Valve’s storefront. The company leaves it up to studios and publishers to be honest about what amount of genAI is used in their games and how. For now, Rideshare will be known as the game that initially hid its use of AI from people who wishlisted it, and whose publisher decided to attack the person who blew the whistle on that.
