Every trailer you ship this year is going to get checked for extra fingers. Plan for it.

Three respected game companies recently faced questions nobody wants to answer.

Jagex pulled a RuneScape Dragon Slayer II trailer after players spotted a character with six fingers. Its external partner had explicitly promised no GenAI.

Sega and Creative Assembly pulled Total War: Shogun 2 – Complete Edition after players flagged AI-upscaled artwork and Steam reviews turned Overwhelmingly Negative.

Blizzard had to explain that its World of Warcraft: Forever social ads were created entirely by humans.

Two of these three, based on what I can tell, involved human-created work and STILL faced scrutiny.

Thats where we are.

Gamers are looking for it:

• 85% of gamers surveyed by Quantic Foundry expressed negative views of GenAI.
• 31% of Steam releases this year carry AI disclosures, up from 11% in 2024.
• Epics Tim Sweeney recently announced a push for maximum AI acceleration.

Players are pushing back while the industry accelerates adoption.

And marketing is caught in the middle.

Our trailers, screenshots, and social content are the first things players see and the easiest to scrutinize.

What concerns me is how many teams are reacting instead of preparing.

A hurried denial sounds defensive. Blaming a partner suggests nobody checked the work.

We plan for competitor launches, review embargoes, and technical issues. We should be planning for AI accusations as well.

Here is what our company is doing with our partners:

1. Establish your AI policy early.
Define acceptable uses, include them in vendor contracts, and assign internal accountability.

2. Review content like players will.
Hands. Text. Armor seams. Inconsistent characters. AI artifacts. Catch issues before the community does.

3. Make your position public.
Put your policy on Steam or your website. Dont let your first explanation be a defensive Reddit reply.

4. Prepare for false accusations.
Have artist credits, production materials, and a factual response ready before controversy hits.

And if you use GenAI in player-facing content, disclose it before launch.

Getting caught hiding it is worse than being transparent.

The gaming community has effectively appointed itself the review board for everything we release.

We can complain about that or build it into our process.

Id rather spend launch week talking about the game than defending how we made the trailer.