Game Dev CEO Accused of Replacing Writers With AI is Now Completely Crashing Out

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Saber, the developer behind the upcoming Rideshare “Stimulator” video game, is being accused of replacing its writers with AI.

The accusation was made Tuesday by Stella Sacco, who says she was fired back in December 2023 while the game was still under development.

“I was lead writer on this one! And Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development,” Sacco wrote on Bluesky.

“All the passenger voices were AI too,” she added. “Either they changed direction at some point or they’re not disclosing it on Steam.”

Initially, Saber CEO Matthew Karch denied the allegations in unremarkable fashion.

“Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI,” he told The Verge, referring to the development studio and game engine maker it’s partnered with.

But as the drama grew, so did his temper. In a fiery statement this Thursday to This Week In Video Games, he lashed out and demeaned Sacco, making vicious and petulant remarks about her time at the company. He came off, in other words, like a complete sociopath.

“Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her,” he fumed. “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.”

“As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later,” he continued. “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.”

Rideshare “Stimulator,” according to Saber, is an “immersive driving simulation game that puts you behind the wheel as a rideshare business owner.”

A trailer for the video game was released at the end of last month, and appears to contain dialogue that’s both written and voiced by AI. This seemed to go unnoticed when it first dropped, but since Sacco made her claims, the tide of comments on the trailer have turned negative, loudly decrying its alleged use of AI.

“This game is AI slop btw,” one warned other viewers. Another stated that, “when you replace your writers with AI midway through development, that’s a no-sale.” One simply called the game “Layoff ‘Simulator.’”

Steam, the massive digital storefront, requires all titles to divulge if they include AI-generated content, but the game’s current listing doesn’t have any AI disclaimer.

Karch admitted to The Verge that the game “incorporates AI,” but wasn’t specific about the type of AI being used.

“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,” Karch told The Verge in a statement made before his recent escalatory remarks. “We are firm believers in using AI tools to improve or enhance gameplay experiences and improve NPC behavior as we have done since Saber was founded in 2001.”

Steam users quickly caught on to this admission. IGN spotted that the platform’s forum for Rideshare “‘Slopulator,’” as one angry wordsmith of a gamer put it, is now overrun with posts blasting the game’s AI usage.

Sacco is sticking to her guns after Karch’s crashout of a denial.

“I’ve seen the statement by Matt Karch, the CEO of Saber Entertainment, and all of the truly horrendous things he said about me,” she told TWIV in a followup statement. “I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he’s lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game.”

“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,” she added. “This screed will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand.”

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IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews