Free Steam demo runs up $1,000 daily AI bill and forces devs to take out bank loan

Free Steam demo runs up $1,000 daily AI bill and forces devs to take out bank loan

Jabberwocky79 raxx said: Hope the slop bankrupts them. I feel like that's a little harsh. Just because something uses AI doesn't automatically make it slop. And in this case, the game is designed around voice-input only, which, given the subject of teaching your little sister how to drive, could probably have some hilarious consequences. What's wrong with that? Reply

ezst036 Live by the slop, die by the slop. It seems an odd choice that they favored online instead of local modeling that could be packaged together as a dependency so that then they would not have to have had to worry about cost expectations later. Reply

hotaru251 taking loans for a demo is bad… most ppl arent gonna buy it they got the feel of what its like and thats enoguh for em….so you are losing money overall. Reply

Roland Of Gilead ezst036 said: Live by the slop, die by the slop. It seems an odd choice that they favored online instead of local modeling that could be packaged together as a dependency so that then they would not have to have had to worry about cost expectations later. Exactly! Reply

USAFRet ezst036 said: Live by the slop, die by the slop. It seems an odd choice that they favored online instead of local modeling that could be packaged together as a dependency so that then they would not have to have had to worry about cost expectations later. Its not unusual to misjudge initial popularity and costs. Lets see where they are a year from now. Reply

hwertz Understanding some commands is something that could have been done locally. Relying on online models for 'turn on your turn signal then turn left here' is… well as they found it can get rather expensive. Reply

salgado18 They started out with the wrong plan. Relying on cloud models has regional availability issues (Like Russia), cost fluctuations, models going out of service etc. And what if a player plays for hours every day? Is that usage in the price? Will it be a monthly sub? That kind of tech can only be viably done fully local (and the the user needs the hardware to handle the game) or it needs to be backed by a big company (which will try to create recurring monetization). Not even the cheapest models can sustain a game with a single purchase. Reply

ravewulf They might not have been able to predict the popularity taking off, but it should have been easy to see that it was a bad idea to release it as a free demo when a core feature of the game relied on a paid service. Reply

USAFRet ravewulf said: They might not have been able to predict the popularity taking off, but it should have been easy to see that it was a bad idea to release it as a free demo when a core feature of the game relied on a paid service. Very true. But here, we see the fail of relying on the AI bots, and not knowing what is behind the curtain. Reply

Key considerations

  • Investor positioning can change fast
  • Volatility remains possible near catalysts
  • Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows

Reference reading

More on this site

Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.

Leave a Comment