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.

 

[HatWearingFool]

Yesterday Charles Urbach made a post about this, and I think he makes a very strong observation. This isn't just Ryan. There are several leaders of the industry making these pro-AI comments, and that's just...pretty depressing, actually. We were an industry founded on human creativity.

It's an interesting read, but it's no different than all the other industries that were destroyed before them. Look at the poor luddites still the butt of jokes and used as an attack, but their livelihoods really were destroyed, everything they feared came to pass. A really rough series of decades followed for many workers and creatives.

It is interesting that in the USA students are setting up luddite clubs now. Maybe history will right the wrong that was done to them

The only hope most creative's have (such as artists and game designers) is if people won't buy AI products, but I doubt that will happen. It's the same as the buy local/American campaigns that never really saved manufacturing jobs. Eventually the product will be good enough and it will be much cheaper.

 

[HatWearingFool]

They are the same thing. When you prioritize profits over people, that is evil.

That's one view, but I'd say it's not the commonly held view of capitalists.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But moving fast and breaking things already happened when manufacturing was off shored with similar results. Tons lost work, good paying jobs went away, etc. We are now just seeing the same thing play out in another work sector (creative and knowledge based jobs).

It's now like we haven't already seen this play out in other sectors.

All of your points apply to wiping out manufacturing jobs and possible soon driving jobs. It's doesn't appear to be motivated by evil, just profit.

I've been working with an American vendor over the last two years and it's been really depressing. Either I deal with someone in India, Mexico, or America. But everyone from America is being shadowed by either someone from Mexico or India so it's clear all the tech jobs are moving to one of those places. I don't know if I could sit and preform my job while I'm obviously training my cheaper replacement but I'm sure they have families to feed while they can.

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.

 

[Umbran]

All of your points apply to wiping out manufacturing jobs and possible soon driving jobs. It's doesn't appear to be motivated by evil, just profit.

Seeking profit without regard to the harm you cause is pretty much evil.

 

[Umbran]

That's one view, but I'd say it's not the commonly held view of capitalists.

The evil guy always claims to be a good guy.

But, we can see the harm and suffering. The question is whether we buy the BS excuses.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It's an interesting read, but it's no different than all the other industries that were destroyed before them. Look at the poor luddites still the butt of jokes and used as an attack, but their livelihoods really were destroyed, everything they feared came to pass. A really rough series of decades followed for many workers and creatives.

It is interesting that in the USA students are setting up luddite clubs now. Maybe history will right the wrong that was done to them

The only hope most creative's have (such as artists and game designers) is if people won't buy AI products, but I doubt that will happen. It's the same as the buy local/American campaigns that never really saved manufacturing jobs. Eventually the product will be good enough and it will be much cheaper.

I can't remember or recall any time in history where artists just don't have a career choice any longer. All these comparisons I keep hearing about "eh, technology has replaced jobs in the past too" is apples and oranges to me. For the first time I can recall, technology is replacing human creativity as a whole.

 

[Artamo]

That's one view, but I'd say it's not the commonly held view of capitalists.

I think whatever ones POV, we can likely agree that corruption is bad, and that’s something that can happen across any kind of system, anytime someone or group of people become powerful enough to work the levers of that system exclusively for their gain.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Is that proof of something?

We could also enumerate amazing, beautiful, high-quality things that have been built by people motivated by profit.

Nice: responding with irritation at HALF of what was being discussed. You have to read the whole sentence.

The poster I was amplifying with my most discussed prioritizing profits over people, not pursuit of profit in and of itself.

To be 100% clear: pursuing profits is not evil. The possibility of realizing profits is a strong motivator to engage in business. Profits, broadly defined, are a necessary precursor to creating leisure time.

But the Ford Pinto and the illegal dumping of toxic waste are two classic examples of prioritizing profits over people. Others would be things like ignoring OSHA regulations, burying research findings that hurt your product’s market value, or paying wages so low that your employees require help from social or governmental safety nets.

Alternately, we could discuss Soviet-era manufacturing. How's your Volga holding up?

Again, those are products where pursuing profits for the owners exceeded the needs of meeting the end user’s needs & safety.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For the first time I can recall, technology is replacing human creativity as a whole.

Attempting to.

IMHO, it’s not being so much being creative as it is recycling. I’ll be (even) more concerned if/when tech creates a new genre of music, literature or visual expression not easily described as being derivative of another, preexisting one.

That said, most people probably can’t/don’t/won’t distinguish creation from remixing.

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

We could also enumerate amazing, beautiful, high-quality things that have been built by people motivated by profit.

I don't understand your point. It seems to me that builders motivated by profit seek to build profitable things - the beauty and quality of those things is at best secondary, perhaps even irrelevant. Maybe you know better, so please do enumerate these things, also explaining how you know the motivation of the people who built them. Thanks, BC