Compared to Hogwarts, Hagrid’s hut is in a relatively good condition after its little Ai trip
Everything else about this IP and JJP’s (mis)handling of it aside, Quidditch scoring has a high potential to create ruling quagmires around tap-out rules and walk-offs. Scoring on the game isn’t over until the game is over and that can kill tournament flow.
Plus, it’s a JJP - not known for finishing in a proper amount of time nor reliability.
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also game changer allowing players to change settings for them self Unless comp mode disables that.
But player comp menu disabled by default as well?
I will give them maybe 1-2 more weeks for code updates before I tell them how I think about the basic comp mode issues so far.
Is there any precedent in other ruling around walk-offs / tap outs around games with end of games points like that. Other then it’s not over till the end.
ALSO that means that no PLAYER is locked into place. In cases of Catastrophic Malfunctions. Places comp balls into an quagmire as well.
(and may need an differnt line of thinking then games with super bonus or per player bonus units (all players get there own) Even more so with being based on # of players)
can’t have best game or pin golf on this with more then one player.
Looks like we got a response from Jack himself:
I was able to get a hold of Jack Guarnieri for official comment from the company. Jack was in the middle of a 6-hour, 5-train journey through the UK to attend a release event at distributor Pinball Heaven, so our conversation was brief.
However, Jack was adamant that AI had not been used for this art package, first offering, “I can tell you that the artwork product you see was all hand-drawn over hundreds of hours, weeks and months.”
When pressed, he elaborated.
“We used the images from the Style Guide and created an adaptive version in the artist’s style, which he hand-painted.
In JJP licensed games, our artists can only interpret the Style Guide artwork fractionally. After all, Harry Potter still needs to look like Harry Potter and get approvals.
Hundreds of hours of work was performed on the art package produced. Not including MinaLima.
AI was not used. No corners were cut, no expense was spared. All three model games are stunningly beautiful.”
Also, JJP is back at their censorship game pulling down certain comments about AI art being used on the game on social media. 
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Rowling owns the characters themselves (in the literary sense). Warner Bros. owns the way those characters are visually represented in the films. All the actors conceded their likeness in HP as part of
contract to be in the movies, who wouldn’t given how big it was.
With JKR having so much money from book sales WB had little negotiating room as she really didn’t need any more money but absolutely insisted she kept final control of the license.
To license something from the books - JKR/Blair only.
To license the movies - 1. Warner Bros. Discovery Consumer Products AND 2. JKR/Blair
She has the final veto on anything.
Cheers,
Neil.
Good reporting, Colin!
I hate that so much. They lose so much credibility for doing that and also removing comments pertaining to a certain author who must not be named and her worldview. I won’t give Jack the benefit of the doubt here.
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thank you!
Well, what do you know!
Thanks for that, I would be surprised to see what’s not Ai now, it’s not fun anymore 
I’m not some kind of expert on movie licensing, don’t want to come off as knowing more than I do. But having worked on Alien and Predator (both with the same studio and people to be fair) my experience is that you can have a lot of different rights when it comes to actor likenesses depending on how they’re used. For instance, these can be all different scenarios with different approvals:
- using a clip of the actor from the film
- using the actor’s likeness in print media
- using an existing pre-approved promotional image
- an actor likeness that is an interpretation of them (hand drawn or otherwise)
I remember years ago at Expo talking with the Big Lebowski team about the backglass art. They were only allowed to use pre-approved actor images, but they were allowed to use Photoshop filters on them to get a more hand drawn feel.
But they had to basically document all the steps for the studio, to prove it was a Photoshop process, and not being hand touched up or altered. “First we used a mild blur, then this oil paint filter set to this, then we sharpened it, then we …”
I would not be surprised if the contracts for the Harry Potter actors were very different from the Predator actors. Studios are much more savvy about how they might want to use likeness rights for things now.
Basically all I’m trying to say is I don’t know anything about how this specific situation went down, just that it can be more messy and complicated than people often realize.
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I have no doubt that the trajectory of IP licensing bends towards greater complexity over time (for better and for worse). But I doubt stuff like the derpy dragon or nonsensical hallucinatory architectural, mechanical, and decorative artifacts have anything to do with studio interference.
We know what technology results in exactly those kinds of errors.
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Yeah, I heard Tom Cruise has a contract that says you can’t use a camera shot of him that isn’t angled upwards!
But JKR like Lucas had a much more control based set of rights across their IPs.
Is he 5’0" or something? 
I’m actually surprised at the opposite of “studio interference” and genuinely shocked that Warner Bros approved the images cited in this thread at all.
I don’t like AI generated art, just in principle, but I’m not talking about that (no idea if Warner Bros has AI art policies or not), just the overall actual quality.
This should have gone through multiple layers of approval. At the very least a brand manager of some kind, and some kind of legal review.
Nobody noticed the utter derp factor?
I’d also be curious if the AI thing is an issue. Replacing actors with AI is a genuinely contentious thing, that’s a big part of the labor contract negotiations. Maybe it just slipped past Warner Bros the same way way the quality issues did?
Clearly JJP is claiming there is no AI, as far fetched as that feels, so I’m guessing nothing was disclosed to the studio.
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I had a friend who worked on a film Tom Cruise was in. He told me it’s actually shocking how much older he looks in person, because he controls his public image so carefully that people just don’t see it.
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To be fair, that is true of like … ALL actors. If you watch the Always Sunny in Philadelphia podcast, for example, they all look like 15 years older when they woke up and dressed themselves versus being pressionally made up and hair dyed for tv.
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So I know there was some late demands from WB/JKR on artwork that many thought would delay the launch.
I was wondering if that’s when AI was used to make these changes happen quickly hence some of the side effects.
There is absolutely no question that AI has been used here, I’d be happy about that other than they clearly had limited processing time so these artifacts are very poor. Surprised the manufacturer hasn’t come clean.
As for approvals - ITV Studios approved the art for Thunderbirds!
Neil.
Ai sucks and artists who use it are trash. It should be disclosed so that people who have actual taste and scruples can pull out and let tasteless, brainless suckers buy it instead.
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So Adobe Illustrator has been using AI since 2016
Photoshop has been using AI since 2010. Awful lot of art thru those doors.
I love AI art - it’s amazing - look at the wonderful posters it did for our tournament, although it’s back in learning mode on “dice”
It has a sweet spot but no talented artist won’t be able to outperform AI art significantly. And nobody lost any thing from these two creations, our budget is zero. Looking at the resources AI art uses it will get more expensive.