According to the makers of the digital trading card game "Champions of Otherworldly Magic," they spend $90,000 on card art, all of which goes to one "AI artist" who receives $15,000 per month despite working less than two days per month. The company says it is being paid.

"We pay our AI artist US$15,000 per month for just 10 hours of work," the X post from the official Champions TCG account reads.

"His art is 100% AI generated, yet there are no extra fingers, generic designs, or mistakes ....... He has a consistent evolution, skin, and alternate art style. We don't care how he made it, we just want it to look good. We only care that the end user enjoys our game."

Champions TCG co-founder and CEO Miles Malec told PC Gamer via DM that the artist created over 1,000 images using generative AI in a six-month period and is paid $15,000 per month It is. The anonymous artist has "15 years of digital art experience" and does not use social media.

"It would take a lot more money and time to pull this off with a team of traditional artists," says Malek. Malec added, "He's a professional and he's paid his fee for it. He's a professional and he pays his fees accordingly.

According to Malek, Champion has made "about $500,000" from card sales so far. Its raison d'etre is that the cards are NFTs that can be traded and purchased in cryptocurrency, but the developer also sells "gems" that can be exchanged for card packs in exchange for regular US dollars, and these credit card transactions have accounted for most of the revenue to date.

As noted in X's post, the card images are not "100%" AI generated. Malek says they are touched up by hand: "AI can do most of the work/initial generation, but everything needs to be edited and filtered to make sure there are no errors, extra fingers, etc.

The entire collection of champions cards can be seen on the website. The illustrations occasionally have claw and paw issues, each more or less resembling something you've seen before; those who don't know they were generated by AI might think they're generic Blizzard or Riot-inspired cards.

The game's official X account defended the card image today, saying that in response to a user who said a kindergartner could do the same thing the AI prompts, the Champion account said, "It's insane to ignore the skills and talent required."

Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone would pay $1,500 an hour for this job, whether or not skills and talents are required, but that aside, we are rapidly passing the theoretical phase of the impact of generative AI on games and entering the "it's happening now" phase AI-generated images have appeared in the marketing materials of major game publishers, including Wizards of the Coast, makers of Magic: The Gathering, but unlike these companies, the developers of Champions have not been known for their use of what many would never apologized for using tools that many consider unethical.

Instead, the company challenges artists to complete a series of "art tests" within 48 hours and claims that anyone who can match the quality of the AI prompt writer will be considered for an assistant job.