A new report claims the apology posted for Lord of the Rings: Gollum was written using ChatGPT without the dev team’s consent.

• The Lord of the Rings: Gollum game received a negative response due to technical problems, derivative gameplay, uninteresting narrative, and poor graphics.
• The apology posted by Nacon was generated by an AI-powered text generator, ChatGPT, without the knowledge of the developer, Daedalic Entertainment.
• The game’s troubled development was attributed to a lack of funds and time, leading to downscaled features and a rushed release.

According to a recent report, Daedalic Entertainment, the developer behind the infamous The Lord of the Rings: Gollum game, has claimed that the apology was generated by the AI-powered text generator, ChatGPT. This report also states the developers had no knowledge of this apology being written and that it was a decision from its publisher, Nacon. Alongside that, Daedelic Entertainment employees also went into detail about what had gone wrong with Lord of the Rings: Gollum during development.

Earlier this year, the licensed game had launched to a rather overwhelming negative response, evident with how Lord of the Rings: Gollum became one of the lowest-rated games of 2023. Several critics and fans have cited the game’s technical problems being the biggest factors to this negative reception, compounded by the gameplay that many found to be derivative and uninteresting. The graphics weren’t a big selling point either, nor was its narrative compelling to many. As such, the game failed to deliver on all fronts to many people, with gamers walking away unimpressed with the big licensed game. The developers have recently spoken up about its troubled development and the source of the struggles the team faced.

Anonymous employees from Daedalic Entertainment were interviewed by German gaming outlet GameTwo, with some discussing the relationship between the developers and its publisher, Nacon. One thing that was brought up was the apology regarding Gollum’s troubled launch that was posted to the game’s official Twitter account. According to Daedalic, this apology was written using the ChatGPT software, to which the developer had no knowledge of it being written or its content prior to its publication, claiming it was all handled by Nacon.

My favorit part. This nonpology from Nacon was written with ChatGPT. pic.twitter.com/N0ZtX2I6WZ — Knoebel (@Knoebelbroet) October 7, 2023

Regarding the apology made for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, many gamers stated that the revelation of Nacon having used ChatGPT to generate it was the reason why it had seemed noncommittal and disingenuous. The biggest indicator in hindsight of how this apology was written without any oversight was the misspelling of the game’s title, addressing it as “The Lord of the Ring: Gollum” in the post.

The average development budget of a AAA game in 2023 is usually around $50-$300 million dollars, with Gollum’s budget being a more modest 15 million Euros. This lack of funds and time was a big contributing factor to why the game was released in the state it was, according to a former senior designer. The developers went into how a lot of features had to be downscaled due to this, such as one scene having to be restricted to only seeing Gollum eavesdrop on two major characters since they had no time to animate the characters. With this report, it’s possible that more blame could fall on the game’s publisher, Nacon, rather than the developers.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a Switch version to come at a later date.

Links:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/chatgpt-was-used-to-write-gollum-game-apology-its-claimed/

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/lord-of-the-rings-gollum-apology-reportedly-written-by-chat-gpt-2327768/