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.

Hotel Barcelona is a colorful, maximalist action roguelike game that fans were incredibly excited for. This meeting of minds between Suda51 and Swery could have created an all-timer for fans of the developers, but it wasn't to be.

The poor reviews hit before players knew about the game's use of generative AI. Critics dislike the fact that many LLMs are trained on existing artworks, regardless of copyright, and that it potentially harms creatives' job prospects as employers seek cheaper labor from an automated system.

If the game wasn't disappointing enough, fans are expressing dismay online. "I also find this disappointing creatively," one Resetera user said of the new generative AI disclosure. "Not disclosing this before release is a real problem," said another.

If you head to the Wayback Machine, you can see that the generative AI disclosure was not on the Steam page as recently as Tuesday, September 30. The only silver lining is that the new disclosure says that the AI features "are being removed in an upcoming patch in favor of non-AI generated content."

This comes months after The Alters similarly did not disclose its AI content on the game's launch. Players found background text that was clearly AI generated after the game had been released, which developer 11 bit studios admitted was meant to be a "placeholder," to be replaced before the game shipped.

"As AI tools evolve, they present new challenges and opportunities in game development," 11 bit studios wrote in its statement on X (Twitter). "We're actively adapting our internal processes to meet this reality. But above all, we remain committed to transparency in how we make our games."

It's this transparency that players are annoyed at. Hotel Barcelona has added this disclosure after release, meaning it was breaking Steam's Terms of Service for the five previous days. Players who may have avoided the game for this AI content may now be past the point of being able to refund the game. Whether there are any repercussions from this remain to be seen.

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