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HOTEL BARCELONA News

The new Swery/Suda collab's greatest sin is trying too hard




There is, I think, no greater faux pas in our image-obsessed society than trying too hard. Anything too obviously keen to impress, too overbearing in its affect, is intolerable whether quality or not. We want sprezzatura, elegance, and honesty, not to be hit over the head by someone very clearly trying to extract some very specific emotion...
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Swery/Suda51 collab Hotel Barcelona sheepishly apologises for AI content, promises 'We are opposed to any professional GenAI use' that kills the planet, steals jobs, or is otherwise 'Unethical'




confession: the only Suda51 game I've ever played is Flower, Sun, and Rain on the Nintendo DS, which I enjoyed despite having no clue what was happening at any given time (I think it had something to do with The Silver Case?). A second confession: I love—non-ironically—Deadly Premonition, Swery's 2010 opus that does a lot of individual things quite badly but somehow amounts to something incredible...
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Statement on AI use in Hotel Barcelona

[p]Hello everyone,
[/p][p]It has come to our attention that we have failed to properly disclose AI-generated content available in the NG+ VHS tapes. We’ll be addressing how this happened and what we are doing to amend the mistake.[/p][p] [/p][p]For now, please take note of the following changes:[/p]
  • [p]We have updated the Hotel Barcelona store page to disclose the use of generative AI.[/p]
  • [p]We are working with White Owls to prepare an update that removes AI-assisted elements from the VHS segment to align with player expectations. Once patched there will be no GenAI content in Hotel Barcelona what-so-ever. [/p]
[p]To clarify the ongoing discussion and remove any uncertainty:[/p]
  • [p]Some voices in the VHS tapes were generated using an AI text to speech service.[/p]
  • [p]All AI generated voices are verified human voice actors that get paid for their work.[/p]
  • [p]The Red Tree Entertainment logo on the VHS tapes has been partially edited and refined using Photoshop Generative AI.[/p]
  • [p]None of the stock footage used in the VHS tapes is AI generated and has been purchased via a stock footage service that is explicitly anti-GenAI.[/p]
  • [p]The VHS tapes themselves were manually edited and personally created by Swery-san in 2022 through early 2023.[/p]
[p]
CULT Games’ stance on generative AI is clear:
we are opposed to any professional GenAI use that has disproportional environmental impact, takes work away from real people, or has been trained on unethical datasets.[/p][p]We regret that our store page did not clearly reflect this detail at launch. We’ve updated the page and will continue improving our disclosures. We want to thank the community for raising it so clearly. Hopefully this message has shed some light on the situation.[/p][p]
Furthermore, we’re working on a patch addressing common performance and QOL issues soon. [/p][p][/p][p]Thank you again for bringing this to our attention.

The CULT Team[/p]

Hotel Barcelona adds Steam generative AI disclosure five days after release

Hotel Barcelona launched to a middling reception last week. With a score of 58 on Metacritic based on 15 reviews, and a 55% positive rating on Steam, it landed firmly in the 'mixed' category. What should have been a triumph for mastermind developers Goichi 'Suda51' Suda and Hidetaka 'Swery' Suehiro wasn't an outright disaster, but I'd be surprised if this reception met their expectations. Fans of the developers have been further disappointed, however, as the game's Steam page has added a generative AI disclosure five days after release.


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Hotel Barcelona's 'hardcore spirit' is inspired by the tough action games creator Swery65 worked on at the start of his career




If there's one thing I know, it's that a game by Killer7 and No More Heroes director Suda51 is going to be a good time, or at the very least interesting. Pair him up with Swery65 of Deadly Premonition fame and you get Hotel Barcelona, a stylish, violent, side-scrolling roguelite about a woman staying in a haunted hotel possessed by a murderer...
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