Crazy Taxi: World Tour Dev Defends GenAI Use

Sega's newly announced Crazy Taxi: World Tour game is among those made in part with generative AI, and now the franchise's original creator, Kenji Kanno, has defended his studio's use of the controversial technology.

He told Kotaku, via a translator, that the game's artists would use generative AI to generate ideas, and then they would "draw the actual thing."

"So actual creators, everything from programming to assets, everything is made by an actual human. It’s only used as a reference for them to look at and then they would actually create the actual thing that would go into the game," he said.

Kanno went on to say he anticipates that generative AI will become more of a "hot topic" in the future than it already is today in the gaming landscape.

World Tour's use of generative AI was first discovered by way of the game's AI disclosure on Steam. It states that generative AI "support tools" were used during the game's development, and that, "No AI was used in reference to the performers in the game." The game's publisher, Sega, said it uses generative AI technologies as a "support tool" for developers with the aim of allowing them to "focus on more creative tasks."

A spokesperson for Sega told Game Informer that the developers used generative AI to create "background assets" in World Tour, and that AI assets were still reviewed by the development team.

Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, who is the director of research and insights at Niko Partners for the Asia and MENA markets, said the use of genAI technologies is "more accepted" in Asian markets.

"They're going to see massive backlash in Western markets," Ahmad said of developers based in Asia.

He added: "The real question of course is whether there will be a material impact on sales." So far, Ahmad said he has not observed much evidence about a negative impact on sales for games where genAI use is disclosed. He cited examples like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Arc Raiders, and Call of Duty.

"But it does come down to how it's used," Ahmad said. He has also talked about how AI usage is very commonplace across the entire games industry.

World Tour is the first entry in the main, non-mobile game series since 2002's Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller. The Unreal Engine-made game has players racing around the world to hunt down the villains who stole the iconic yellow taxi. The game is set for release in 2027 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch 2.

For more, check out GameSpot's further coverage:

• Crazy Taxi Is Back And It's Coming With... Lore?