A public spat between Saber Interactive – creator of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, the upcoming Suntman: Hollywood game and many others – and a former employee who claims she was “replaced” by ChatGPT has erupted over the past few days, and in the wake of new statements from either side has continued to intensify.
Overnight, Saber Interactive co-founder and CEO Matthew Karch said to This Week in Videogames: “I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.” To which the fired employee in question, Stella Sacco, responded: “That statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber’s reputation than it ever could mine.”
The controversy began a few days ago, on 11th August, when Sacco, formerly a lead writer on Stuntman Hollywood – which was unveiled this summer – shared a trailer for a Saber-published game called Rideshare “Stimulator” that she’d been working on with developer Unigine. She revealed the game had been made with gen-AI but didn’t disclose this fact on Steam – and that she’d been replaced by ChatGPT.
“I was lead writer on this one!” Sacco wrote on Bluesky. “And Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development. All the passenger voices were AI too. Either they changed direction at some point or they’re not disclosing it on Steam.”
Rideshare “Stimulator” is a taxi game spun around the idea of managing a rideshare, app-based business. Apparently the world you drive around feels dynamic and life-like, and the passengers you pick up have “unique and unpredictable” stories to tell.
Saber has denied claims of gen-AI use a couple of times. In a statement to PC Gamer, it said: “Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game. In fact, Saber’s staff of writers has tripled since 2023. Rideshare’s story was written entirely by real people.”
“It should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he’s lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game” – Stella Sacco
The publisher did note, however, that a more “experimental” free-ride mode “by necessity incorporates AI as the number of the passengers in the game is infinite”. “We are firm believers in using AI tools to improve or enhance gameplay experiences and improve NPC behavior as we have done since Saber was founded in 2001.”
But Sacco wasn’t having it. “They can say what they want – I was there,” she told PC Gamer. “They took me off the project to use ChatGPT to write the rest of the text, including planned live updates. If they changed plans in the intervening years, that’s great, but again: I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn’t once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game.”
That prompted Karch’s incendiary response overnight, which began: “Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalised the feature set.
“Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.
“We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers. As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later.”
Sacco’s response overnight came as a result of this. “I’ve seen the statement by Matt Karch, the CEO of Saber Entertainment, and all of the truly horrendous things he said about me,” she wrote. “I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he’s lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game.
“Everything I said was true. Here’s more truth: that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber’s reputation than it ever could mine. This screed will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand.
“I appreciate everyone’s support, but people who know me know I’m a person of principle, and one of those principles is don’t let the bastards get away with it. I’m comfortable with what I said, and everyone got to see what kind of man is running Saber.
“This is my official public statement.”
Sacco had also previously alluded to the situation several months ago, without specifying the game in question at the time. “I ever tell you guys I got replaced with ChatGPT on a project at Saber?” Sacco wrote on Bluesky. “One of the execs figured if we wanted to do live ops content for it not only would it be less work for everyone if ChatGPT wrote all of it, but that they could use it as a marketing selling point since gamers love AI.
“My boss, to his credit in this case, argued against it over and over — ‘We got Stella for this and you want a computer to write it?’ — but the exec didn’t want to hear it.”
