Ryan Dancey & AEG Part Ways Following AI Comments

Ryan Dancey, the Chief Operating Officer of boardgame publisher Alderac Entertainment Group, no longer works for the company, following statements on social media where he claimed that AI could make most of the company's board games, and that D&D and Magic: the Gathering were the only new forms of gameplay in his lifetime. After another poster on LinkedIn claimed that "AI wouldn't come up with Tiny Towns or Flip Seven or Cubitos because it doesn't understand the human element of fun", Dancey responded that he had zero reason to believe that AI could not do such a thing.

"I have zero reason to believe that an Al couldn't come up with Tiny Towns or Flip Seven or Cubitos. I can prompt any of several Als RIGHT NOW and get ideas for games as good as those. The gaming industry doesn't exist because humans create otherwise unobtainable ideas. It exists because many many previous games exist, feed into the minds of designers, who produce new variants on those themes. People then apply risk capital against those ideas to see if there's a product market fit. Sometimes there is, and sometimes there is not. (In fact, much more often than not).

Extremely occasionally (twice in my lifetime: D&D and Magic: the Gathering) a human has produced an all new form of gaming entertainment. Those moments are so rare and incandescent that they echo across decades.

Game publishing isn't an industry of unique special ideas. It's an industry about execution, marketing, and attention to detail. All things Als are great at."

- Ryan Dancey​

The Cardboard Herald, a boardgame reviews channel, responded yesterday on BlueSky that "As you may have seen, [AEG] CEO Ryan Dancey stated that AI can make games “just as good as Tiny Towns or Flip 7 or Cubitos”, completely missing the inexorable humanity involved.We’ve spent 10 years celebrating creatives in the industry. Until he’s gone we will not work with AEG."

Today, AEG's CEO John Zinser stated "Today I want to share that Ryan Dancey and AEG have parted ways.This is not an easy post to write. Ryan has been a significant part of AEG’s story, and I am personally grateful for the years of work, passion, and intensity he brought to the company. We have built a lot together. As AEG moves into its next chapter, leadership alignment and clarity matter more than ever. This transition reflects that reality.Our commitment to our designers, partners, retailers, and players remains unchanged. We will continue building great games through collaboration, creativity, and trust."

Dancey himself posted "This morning [John Zinser] and I talked about the aftermath of my post yesterday about the ability of AI to create ideas for games. He's decided that it's time for me to move on to new adventures. Sorry to have things end like this. I've enjoyed my 10 years at AEG. I wish the team there the best in their future endeavors.

I believe we're at a civilizational turning point. That who we are and how we are is going to change on the order of what happened during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions; and it's past time we started talking about it and not being afraid to discuss the topic. Talking about AI, being honest about what it can and cannot do, and thinking about the implications is something we have to begin to do in a widespread way. Humans have a unique creative spark that differentiates us and makes us special and we should celebrate that specialness as we experience this epic change.

For the record: I do not believe that AI will replace the work talented game designer/developers do, nor do I think it is appropriate to use AI to replace the role of designer/developers in the publication of tabletop games. During my time at AEG I developed and implemented polices and contracts that reflect those views. It's important to me that you know what I believe and what I don't believe on this particular topic, despite what you may have read elsewhere."

Whatever your position on generative LLMs and the like, when the COO of your company announces publicly that all of the company’s games could have been made by AI, it’s a problem. UK readers may recall when major jewelry chain Ratners’ CEO Gerald Ratner famously announced that the products sold in his stores were “trash”, instantly wiping half a billion pounds from the company’s value back in the early 1990s. The company was forced to close stores and rebrand to Signet Group. At the time the Ratners Group was the world's biggest jewelry retailer. Ratner himself was forced to resign in 1992. The act of making a damaging statement about the quality of your own company’s products became known as “doing a Ratner”.

Dancey was VP of Wizards of the Coast when the company acquired TSR, the then-owner of Dungeons & Dragons. He is also known for being the architect of the Open Game License. Dancey has worked as Chief Operating Officer for AEG for 10 years, and was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company, second-in-command after the CEO, John Zinser.

 

[Scribe]

Laying down and saying "this is inevitable" helps ensure that it is.

I'm not laying down, I'm busting my ass to ensure that when it all goes to naughty word, and it will, my family is going to be OK.

 

[HatWearingFool]

20th century "electronic" art music, especially early synthesis. Related to the invention of the magnetically driven speaker and recording technologies.

Didn’t that come from mystique concrete, which came from telharmonium, which came from previous not electric organs?

 

[HatWearingFool]

I'm not sure what your point is here.

"It happened to blue collar workers, and enough people weren't upset about it, so now it's OK to do again to white collar workers?"

That's nihilistic and just means this pattern will just keep on repeating until everyone but a few now-offshore billionaires is affected.

I’m saying that why would you expect the same plan that didn’t work countless times before to suddenly work now?

If creatives/knowledge based people just retry the same thing I don’t think they should expect better results.

That’s not nihilism, that’s just hey that strategy was tried multiple times and hasn’t succeeded once. Maybe try to think of something different.

 

[Artamo]

Technology has definitely limited the number of artists we have/need over time.

Every family used to have someone that could play an instrument, it was an important part of filling time and providing entertainment. Recorded music and players basically wiped that out. I’m confident we have less musicians than at any other point in time.

The printing press basically wiped out illuminated manuscripts.

We have a lot less story tellers, dancers, etc because technology has made it so most people can now just see the very best of each. Many more preformed all over before mass media.

We still have creativities but a lot less people make their living or hobbies from it than before.

I wouldn’t equate providing entertainment for one’s family as using entertainment to make a living. Artists of all sorts required patrons for years in order to fund their work. I don’t see this as being the same thing.

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

Didn’t that come from mystique concrete, which came from telharmonium, which came from previous not electric organs?

Of course, but I wouldn't say it is easily described as "derivative." Connected, to, in dialogue with, grounded on, sure, derivative, no. I'd say there's something genuinely new and not thought of by previous practitioners. Of course YMMV.

 

[Scribe]

I’m saying that why would you expect the same plan that didn’t work countless times before to suddenly work now?

If creatives/knowledge based people just retry the same thing I don’t think they should expect better results.

That’s not nihilism, that’s just hey that strategy was tried multiple times and hasn’t succeeded once. Maybe try to think of something different.

Which...of course makes little sense when one looks at the resources stacked against us.

 

[HatWearingFool]

I wouldn’t equate providing entertainment for one’s family as using entertainment to make a living. Artists of all sorts required patrons for years in order to fund their work. I don’t see this as being the same thing.

But they were creatives that were replaced/supplanted by technology. Or all the people that used to create art for homes.

The flip side is that now we can have a few super rich super powerful creatives.

I'm not sure if we are in a better place with creativity than we were 150 years ago. I'd say we have less people doing creative endeavors but many more of society get to experience the fruits of the best of the best.

Are artists motivated by profit giving us better art? At a mass level I'd guess yes, is it pushing art along as well I don't know.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Technology has definitely limited the number of artists we have/need over time.

Every family used to have someone that could play an instrument, it was an important part of filling time and providing entertainment. Recorded music and players basically wiped that out. I’m confident we have less musicians than at any other point in time.

The printing press basically wiped out illuminated manuscripts.

We have a lot less story tellers, dancers, etc because technology has made it so most people can now just see the very best of each. Many more preformed all over before mass media.

We still have creativities but a lot less people make their living or hobbies from it than before.

Again, this is apples to oranges to me. I'd like to see your citations that recorded music wiped out people having musical careers. Or how the printing press wiped out careers in writing, journalism, etc. Or the figures on how many people had performing careers before and after mass media (sure seems like there are a lot more actors now than in 1920). Where's your data that supports any of this?

What we're talking about is an entire creative industry being replaced by AI. No artists, no writers, no screen plays, etc. Those careers would largely be eliminated.

it's not the same.

 

[Scribe]

it's not the same.

Yes, we have been saying this around here for over a year, but the scale and impact is very much not the same, across a much much wider range of professions.

Hope everyone's kids or grandkids enjoy Trades/Labour. (Assuming the robots do not get there first!)

 

[Artamo]

I’m so confused - what do people think is going to happen when everyone decides they’re going to be a plumber or a pipefitter when they grow up? Is there some sort of huge surge in construction that’s going to support this sudden on-rush of blue collar jobs?