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.

 

[LordEntrails]

The whole point of this thread is AI replacing careers. Jobs. Not hobbies. No amount of AI is going to stop me from drawing myself, because I like it. Recorded music never stopped anyone from playing an instrument for fun. And we're not talking about corner cases. "Well, AI did replace artists who paint in a particular style that is very small compared to the whole...." We're talking about the entire industry. So....apples and oranges.

Which again, you have yet to provide any actual data to back up the claims you made. Which is moot, really, because again, we're talking about lost jobs here. Eliminated career paths.

I'm confused. Are you saying that the other examples are not relevant because those advancements did not entirely kill a profession? But that AI will entirely kill the artist profession?
And you are demanding proof about the impacts of the decline of other professions?
And are not providing any data to support your claim that AI will completely kill the artist profession?

 

[Clint_L]

To add, I've already seen pro-AI groups co-opting Inclusivity and Accessibility language, eg "AI can let disabled or neuro-divergent people create art themselves, at last? Are you against inclusivity?". yeah I'm sure that's what the silicon valley dude bro oligarchs are thinking of.

It's obviously not what they care about...but AI or other technologies potentially helping folks in those categories is something that I care about, so I'm not going to throw the potential baby out with the bathwater here. Like, if AI can make my child's life better or help their emplyment prospects, then that would be great. It's just not clear to me how it would do so.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm confused. Are you saying that the other examples are not relevant because those advancements did not entirely kill a profession? But that AI will entirely kill the artist profession?

I'm saying those other examples aren't relevant because they aren't peoples' jobs. They're hobbies. My uncle Joe the fiddler doesn't play the fiddle at family gatherings as his job. And hobbies didn't end with recorded music. Or photography.

And you are demanding proof about the impacts of the decline of other professions?

I'm demanding proof that recorded music killed off professional musician careers. Or photography killed off all professional artists. One thing that keeps getting missed that I keep bringing up is whenever someone gives an example of a job being replaced, it's only one job in narrow field of an entire umbrella of similar careers.

"Look! The printing press eliminated all these people making illuminated books!"
"Not really, as those people didn't really lose their jobs, they just started using the tool to make more books than they could before. Not only that, but it increased creative jobs like writers who could enter the industry because it's now easier for them to get their writing in print. That's the opposite of an entire industry being massively reduced."

"Look! Photographs killed off this group of painters!"
"Yeah, but they are just a small subset of professional artists. We saw more professional artists enter the industry as media took off." Who do you think was doing all the art for magazines, ads, movies, book covers, etc.?

It's why I keep saying apples and oranges.

And are not providing any data to support your claim that AI will completely kill the artist profession?

Look around. I don't mean that dismissively, even though it sounds that way. Just in this thread you've got people talking about how AI is going to replace their jobs (like mine). As an indie publisher, I am very keenly aware at the flood of AI created art and writing that is drowning actual humans. Leaders of the industry are telling us they are using AI going forward (of course corporations are always about profit, and the first thing corporations do to maximize profit is to eliminate staff). I'm friends with dozens of professional artists, and all have seen their work drop. Media companies are using AI instead of hiring creative firms. Heck, the Superbowl was full of AI ads, with one literally showing how AI can replace the film industry.

If it wasn't for the backlash against AI, it would be even worse. And that backlash is slowly eroding as it becomes more mainstream. So proof that AI is killing the artist profession? It's all around us. It's like a cancer.

• Job Declines: In 2025, job postings for creative roles dropped significantly, with computer graphic artists down 33%, photographers down 28%, and writers down 28%.
• Freelancer Impact: A 2024 survey showed that over a quarter of illustrators (26%) and over a third of translators (36%) have already lost work due to AI.
• Future Outlook: Roughly 64% of marketers believe AI will replace them within 5 years, and 65% of fiction writers believe AI will negatively impact their future income.
• Content Marketing: 90% of content marketers are expected to use AI by 2025, which reduces the demand for basic, non-distinctive writing.
  (source: Bloomberry)

And we're still in the infancy of AI...

 

[Committed Hero]

Is he wrong though? I do not know enough about those game or the extent of front-running AI abilities.

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

If he wanted to try and prove the first statement, it's easily showable with the results of his AI queries.

As to his second point - that D&D and Magic are the only breakthrough games in the last half-century - that's a pretty narrow view of game innovation that would justify anyone cutting him loose from a gaming company alone.

 

[LordEntrails]

If it wasn't for the backlash against AI, it would be even worse. And that backlash is slowly eroding as it becomes more mainstream. So proof that AI is killing the artist profession? It's all around us. It's like a cancer.

To me, "killing" means 100% gone. And AI won't result in 100% of artists losing there jobs. There will always be a desire for human made art. It will probably become niche and expensive. But not all artists will go away. Maybe all artists will be affected, and probably most of them negatively, but some will survive, some will continue to be professional artists. Artists that are flexible will adapt. Maybe they will become something else, maybe they will become artistic prompt engineers, maybe they will develop a whole new category of employment.

Apples and oranges? Maybe, but because of scale, not absolutes. IMO.

 

[Sacrosanct]

To me, "killing" means 100% gone. And AI won't result in 100% of artists losing there jobs. There will always be a desire for human made art. It will probably become niche and expensive. But not all artists will go away. Maybe all artists will be affected, and probably most of them negatively, but some will survive, some will continue to be professional artists. Artists that are flexible will adapt. Maybe they will become something else, maybe they will become artistic prompt engineers, maybe they will develop a whole new category of employment.

Apples and oranges? Maybe, but because of scale, not absolutes. IMO.

I don't know man, we're in the infancy of AI, it's still garbage and unreliable, and already 25-30% of work is lost. Those are pretty damning numbers. Everything points to a devastation of the industry as AI gets better. Not one or two specific jobs here and there, but an entire industry.

 

[Parmandur]

I predict that most normies will consume AI stuff without a second thought. Human-made products will only be appreciated by hobbyists, collectors as a luxury item. Like organic produce.

"Unlike store-bought board games, THIS one was entire designed by human writers, editors, artists and designers, hence the premium collector's price and value."

If big corpos love AI and use it to increase profits, it's here to stay. Films made with real people will be a rare, film-buff type of thing, like going to modern art galleries.

I can see it now "how pretentious; that gallery only features human-slop, not a shred of AI in there, buncha elitists".

To add, I've already seen pro-AI groups co-opting Inclusivity and Accessibility language, eg "AI can let disabled or neuro-divergent people create art themselves, at last? Are you against inclusivity?". yeah I'm sure that's what the silicon valley dude bro oligarchs are thinking of.

Yeah, don't really see that working out.

 

[Morrus]

Let me guess without reading it--this thread has been, for at least 20 of its 30 pages so far, not about Ryan Dancey and AEG but the exact same AI conversation with the exact same people saying the exact same things as in every other thread with the words 'AI' in the title?

What do I win if I'm right?

 

[Scribe]

I don't know man, we're in the infancy of AI, it's still garbage and unreliable, and already 25-30% of work is lost. Those are pretty damning numbers. Everything points to a devastation of the industry as AI gets better. Not one or two specific jobs here and there, but an entire industry.

Even better, its not 'an' industry. Its 'many if not most' industries.

 

[LordEntrails]

I don't know man, we're in the infancy of AI, it's still garbage and unreliable, and already 25-30% of work is lost. Those are pretty damning numbers. Everything points to a devastation of the industry as AI gets better. Not one or two specific jobs here and there, but an entire industry.

When needed, humans adapt. Especially when they need food and shelter. I understand the concern and fear, and their are lots of sci-fi books that layout some sort of similar doom and gloom. But I have hope. Change is coming (as it always does), but for most of us it won't be doom and gloom.