Balatro creator hits back at AI art spread on the roguelike's subreddit: "I don't use it in my game, I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds"

Balatro creator Localthunk spent years working on his hit roguelike mostly on his lonesome, so it's maybe not surprising that he's now landed on the anti side of the AI art debate.

To find the context for his quotes, however, we first need to backtrack to Redditor DrTankHead, who was a moderator for the game's main subreddit and the owner of r/balatromance, a page mainly dedicated to NSFW erotic joker fanart inspired by the game. (If that last cursed line wasn't a hint already, prepare for a very chronically online tale.)

As reported on by Garbage Day and shared by RPS, discussions about AI art tags flooded onto the main subreddit - with many of them now dead and locked - but in one now-deleted thread, DrTankHead claimed that AI art wouldn't be banned in the community "after discussion with the staff at [publisher] Playstack," and said the sub wasn't the place to debate AI art in the first place. Countless other threads popped up after. Many a 'horny weirdo' insult was flung. And then Localthunk intervened in the mess.

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"A mod recently changed the flair in this subreddit for AI-generated art, making it seem like Playstack condones AI art," Localthunk wrote. "This was not due to a direct order from Playstack (A Playstack representative told me this) but from an interpretation of a message about enforcing the rules of the subreddit. Neither Playstack nor I condone AI 'art.' I don't use it in my game, I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds. The actions of this mod do not reflect how Playstack feels or how I feel on the topic. We have removed this moderator from the moderation team."