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.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Does AI need to do any of those things to make the C-Suite more money?

In the sort run probably not, just the belief will do.
AI does not need to do all of those thing, IMHO, to be useful. It is just that I am not convinced by many of the claims of the AI corporates.
I do think that if they cannot do most of what I listed, then I am not sure they can design a good boardgame.

I think that we are in a bubble, that expenses in the AI industry is several orders of magnitude over revenue. It cannot last. I also think that many of the more extreme claims are literally nonsense.
In particular, the notion that most jobs can be replaced by AI and robotics, because if this is true there is no longer a market for these robots and AI produced goods and services to be sold to.
I also believe that some recent political developments will impact the tech industry in way that they do not seem to have registered yet.

 

[Zaukrie]

People said AI wouldn't take over accounting and development jobs..... I'm a doomer on this topic. Computers will take over almost all work that isn't physical in nature at some point in my kids lifetime. What then?

On Dancey.....I was unaware what a bleep he was....

 

[FitzTheRuke]

People said AI wouldn't take over accounting and development jobs..... I'm a doomer on this topic. Computers will take over almost all work that isn't physical in nature at some point in my kids lifetime. What then?

The answer to that is supposed to be "work less, focus on what brings joy and interest".

But unfortunately, that's not the world we currently live in. They are more likely to have to fight some sort of revolution, sadly.

 

[Zaukrie]

The answer to that is supposed to be "work less, focus on what brings joy and interest".

But unfortunately, that's not the world we currently live in. They are more likely to have to fight some sort of revolution, sadly.

Agreed

 

[Cergorach]

“Anthropic safety researcher Mrinank Sharma said this week that he was leaving the company to explore a poetry degree, writing in a letter to colleagues that the “world is in peril” from AI, among other dangers. Last month, he published a paper that found that advanced AI tools can disempower users and distort their sense of reality. Anthropic says it is grateful for Sharon’s work”

That was obviously written by AI (LLM)...

It’s kind of like the VP of Customer Service for a company saying publicly that “our customers are stupid.”

But they would be so right!

In the sort run probably not, just the belief will do.
AI does not need to do all of those thing, IMHO, to be useful. It is just that I am not convinced by many of the claims of the AI corporates.
I do think that if they cannot do most of what I listed, then I am not sure they can design a good boardgame.

I think that we are in a bubble, that expenses in the AI industry is several orders of magnitude over revenue. It cannot last. I also think that many of the more extreme claims are literally nonsense.
In particular, the notion that most jobs can be replaced by AI and robotics, because if this is true there is no longer a market for these robots and AI produced goods and services to be sold to.
I also believe that some recent political developments will impact the tech industry in way that they do not seem to have registered yet.

It's an IT tradition to dive in, head first, make permanent changes and then find out that things don't work as you thought they would. Quite often due to sales/marketing convincing a manager higher up in the foodchain. It sometimes happens that someone pulls on the emergency stop before that happens, but most often I'm hired after things have gone downhill to fix stuff... And not every company/manager is honest in the results of an IT project.

There's also a question of costs, risk, security, etc. Currently, most AI (LLM) services are selling their services drastically under cost. When they start asking prices to actually make a profit, that might kill AI (LLM) in certain cases as being more expensive then actual people... I've seen multiple US Tech companies raising their prices suddenly by x4 with very little notice...

 

[HatWearingFool]

I do think that if they cannot do most of what I listed, then I am not sure they can design a good boardgame.

But what is a "good" boardgame. From most perspectives it's one that makes money. Look at all the rehashes of Monopoly. I don't think anyone would say they are "good" games but yet someone has been paid quite a bit (in the aggregate) to create those. Are we sad that job will be replaced by AI?

A lot of human work has been the equivalent of cranking out AI slop.

Apparently, a lot of graphic designers in Hollywood\entertainment industry are losing their jobs because up until last year they were paid good money to crank out background material (soup cans, magazines, posters) for movies and tv shows to make "worlds" feel more real. And now it's all being done by AI in post.

Most people would have labelled graphic design as skilled creative work, but are most people sad that in the last year much of the stuff background stuff they've seen in their entertainment has been AI Slop? This is mostly like cranking out versions of Monopoly to me. How many fake soup cans do I need to see? I'm sure this was fulfilling creative work for someone though.

I figure AI is just going to keep moving up the chain.

Locally I know many businesses in my area are now getting AI to generate graphics for ads instead of employing a local graphic designer. Are they getting great work? No, but how good does it need to be really? Most local posters and ad's weren't amazing pieces of innovation.

I think that we are in a bubble, that expenses in the AI industry is several orders of magnitude over revenue. It cannot last. I also think that many of the more extreme claims are literally nonsense.
In particular, the notion that most jobs can be replaced by AI and robotics, because if this is true there is no longer a market for these robots and AI produced goods and services to be sold to.

Just because something will ruin the economy doesn't mean it isn't technically possible nor that someone won't move ahead and do it..

 

[HatWearingFool]

There's also a question of costs, risk, security, etc. Currently, most AI (LLM) services are selling their services drastically under cost. When they start asking prices to actually make a profit, that might kill AI (LLM) in certain cases as being more expensive then actual people... I've seen multiple US Tech companies raising their prices suddenly by x4 with very little notice...

Yes but corporations have a history of undercutting to wipeout competition (in this case human workers) and then cranking up the prices once you have no viable competition. If you've have wiped out all coding jobs and people stop going to school to be programmers what option will companies have but to pay you whatever you ask for software development agents.

Same with accountants, truck drivers, taxi drives, cgi artists... once they are gone you can charge whatever you want.

No one cares about long term cost, they care if they can crank profits for the next couple of quarters at best....

 

[overgeeked]

Is he wrong though?

Yes.

I do understand companies wanting to let go of people not towing the company line or bashing them online. Is this what the kids call FAFO.

Absolutely, yes. Publicly crap all over the creativity and talent of your entire company and industry. Get immediately fired the next day.

I'll still always be thankful to him for what he did with dnd and the 3e SRD/OGL.

Open licenses are great. That basically 99% of the industry is D&D product is the worst possible outcome.

 

[Distracted DM]

There's also a question of costs, risk, security, etc. Currently, most AI (LLM) services are selling their services drastically under cost. When they start asking prices to actually make a profit, that might kill AI (LLM) in certain cases as being more expensive then actual people... I've seen multiple US Tech companies raising their prices suddenly by x4 with very little notice...

Yes, though what the actual cost will be to make a profit I don't know- Doordash and Uber kept their service prices a fraction of what they are now for a very long time, basically subsidizing their own service costs. The idea is to make your service permeate the market, preferably make it indispensable, then you can raise the prices because people see the value in it and couldn't imagine living without it. At this point, that's almost standard stuff. The really crappy thing is the next step, where now you're making a profit but you need to make much more for investors and make the line go up, so you start to scale back service quality or you implement extra costs. Thus the enshittification begins.

So yeah I don't know what AI's actual profit-making cost will be, I imagine that's why it's being pitched to every corporation in the world so 1. it becomes an industry standard and 2. enterprise/corporations are where the money is; I don't think $10-20/month from individual users is going to cover AI's operating costs, much less make a profit.

 

[Distracted DM]

As far as Dancey's comments go, yes it's basically saying "with two exceptions over 50 years, every one of you could be replaced by AI today." I'm sure he thinks he's speaking the truth and that everyone just needs to accept that. I'd like to think he's wrong, though I am still not adjusted to AI in our world.. partially because it keeps advancing (even if as I've heard LLMs are hitting a wall) (Remember a few years ago when "art" AI could at best make splotches on a screen and you'd have to imagine how they fit your prompt?).
But either way Dancey sure was, per OP, "doing a Ratner."