Awaken Realms vows “no AI art” for Concordia: Special Edition after BGG review bombing

Board game publisher Awaken Realms has responded to a wave of anti-AI art review bombing for its upcoming crowdfund, Concordia: Special Edition, by saying no AI-generated imagery will be used in the finished game.

The title is the latest seminal eurogame to be re-released in a spruced-up, premium edition by Awaken Realms – and also the latest to see the publisher come under fire for embracing generative AI software such as Midjourney in developing some of its games.

Awaken Realms is one of highest-profile tabletop publishers to confirm it uses AI image generators, with other notable adopters of the technology including Stronghold Games – which attracted significant ire for its use of AI art in its $2.2m More Terraforming Mars! crowdfunding campaign.

The technology has been widely criticised by artists angry that the models are built upon their work without licensing or recompense, in addition to outcry over its environmental costs and threats to jobs in the creative and other industries.

Almost all of the first few dozen ratings for Concordia: Special Edition posted by BoardGameGeek users gave the title ‘1’ – the lowest possible score – following its unveiling at the end of February, with the vast majority of those citing AI art as their rationale.

That was followed by a spate of users scoring the game the maximum ’10’ in an attempt to counteract the low scores – but the ongoing tussle has left it with an average of just 4.7, the lowest current rating of any Awaken Realms full game, and well below the 8-plus ratings enjoyed by many of the publisher’s prior releases.

BoardGameGeek’s suggested ratings guidelines say a ‘1’ review “Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken.”, while a ’10’ is suggested as “Outstanding. Always want to play and expect this will never change”.

BGG’s current policy is that “users are allowed to rate games however they wish, as long as each person only rates a given game once.”

The original edition of Concordia, released by German publisher PD-Verlag in 2013, has a BGG rating of 8.1 from more than 45,000 users, and is ranked 29th out of the tens of thousands of titles listed on the site’s database.

Awaken Realms is yet to unveil many details about the upcoming special edition, with the Gamefound preview page currently only showing a box cover – which it has since described as a work in progress – and examples of two plastic miniatures set to be included in the game.

The company dedicated most of its first update on the Gamefound page to discussing its use of AI generated imagery, saying that it did not address the situation sooner because “we find this whole conversation extremely draining”.

It said, “We feel that the current situation is really not respectful toward our artists, who are really working hard on each project, and Concordia will be no different. They will be doing their best to pay tribute to this classic and elevate it to new heights.

“So, first things first – in this project, in the final game, there will be no AI art. Human artists will be involved in everything. This has also been clearly stated from the beginning in our contract with PD-Verlag.

“However, we do use some AI tools during prototyping, mock-ups, and various initial phases of concept work (and honestly, it is really hard not to, as eg, Photoshop alone, which is our artists’ main tool, has already tons of built-in AI features).

“This makes it easier to test the game visually, iterate, find the best solutions and compositions, and, from there, start working on the final assets.

“In different projects, we might have different rules and approaches. For example, you can see our other project – Grimcoven. There, we also had an update on the topic, as well as a chance to see the final result of how the game looks as it is produced and delivered to backers ;).”

Other Campaigns

Grimcoven raised more than $5.1m across its 2024 Gamefound campaign and late pledges, and has so far avoided the heavy review bombing that has taken place for Concordia SE. Awaken Realms put out a similar pre-campaign update about its AI use for that title, calling it at the time “a ‘hot topic’ generating a lot of emotions”.

The publisher had come under fire online earlier that year for using AI in creating promotional images for its Puerto Rico 1897: Special Edition crowdfunding campaign – images it subsequently pulled from the crowdfunding page after being contacted by the game’s licensor, Ravensburger.

Despite online pushback against Awaken Realms for its decision to embrace AI generated imagery, its use of the technology has had little apparent negative impact on the success of its crowdfunding campaigns to date.

The publisher’s six most recent campaigns which it says made use of AI image making tools have raised almost €39m between them across their crowdfunds and late pledges, with Lands of Evershade the standout at more than $12.5m.

Awaken Realms Board Game	Total raised across crowdfunding, late pledges
Dragon Eclipse: The Grand Quest	€3,321,287
BELOW: The Asylum	€4,038,955
Agricola: Special Edition	€7,326,500
This War of Mine Second Edition	€3,730,079
Lands of Evershade	$12,576,991
Grimcoven	$5,136,331
Grand total	~€38,900,000

But some of those have also begun to feel the impact of anti-AI sentiment on their BGG ratings. Agricola: Special Edition is currently rated at 6.2, with more than a third of its 309 ratings scored as ‘1’, while the yet-to-launch Agricola: Dead Harvest campaign is rated 5.9, with almost 90% of its 104 ratings so far either ‘1’s or ’10’s.

The six most recent campaigns using AI imagery – which also include BELOW: The Asylum, This War of Mine: Second Edition and Grimcoven – all included a statement acknowledging that usage in the FAQ section of their respective Gamefound campaigns.

The stipulation to transparently disclose the use of AI in Gamefound campaigns was implemented by the crowdfunding site in March last year, and codified in an update to its terms of service at the end of last month.

Awaken Realms’ AI art statement in its Agricola: Special Edition campaign FAQ states, “We are using different technologies, including AI tools, to various degrees – from built-in Photoshop capabilities (intelligent brushes, advanced texturing, and some AI tools), Internal Stable Diffusion models, MJ[Midjourney] models, pixel correction, scaling solutions and so on. Everything we use is screened and accepted by our legal team as fully legal to use.

“Those are different tools that we use NOT to decrease cost and DEFINITELY NOT to replace artists but to bring better quality to our customers and enhance creativity by allowing faster prototyping and iteration.

“We are constantly growing our art team (in the last 12 months, we have hired six new artists), as well as yearly increasing wages and sharing profits by yearly bonuses. We really care about our team and are extremely proud of their work.

“We deeply believe that in any creative endeavor, human involvement is absolutely essential, and instead of just ‘talking the talk’, we have actually walked the walk and increased our artist count and wages every year.

“This is our statement on the topic and we are fully dedicated to supporting and growing our art team, as well as bringing the best quality to our backers. We believe that this approach is better than making big PR statements and then firing people with a week’s notice, as, unfortunately, can be observed all around the industry.”

It is not immediately clear which board game publishers Awaken Realms is referring to with the final part of that statement.

The Agricola Special Edition statement is very different to the AI art section of the FAQ for Awaken Realms’ most recent crowdfund, Labyrinth Chronicles – which, like Puerto Rico Special Edition, is published by Gamefound investor Ravensburger.

That statement said, “We also noticed a few questions regarding the creative process behind Labyrinth Chronicles and whether any AI-generated artwork was used in the game.

“We would like to clearly state that no AI-generated art was used in the final product. Every illustration, graphic element, and 3D model was created by our talented team of artists who worked on this project.”

That statement then goes on to list 24 artists, graphic designers, illustrators and 3d modellers who it said worked on the title.

Awaken Realms has taken great pains recently to highlight the extent of its art and design team – which it said in the Concordia: Special Edition Gamefound update now comprises 32 people across art, 2D layout, 3D sculpture and desktop publishing, out of a board games division of more than 100 people.

Gamefound was launched in 2015 as a Kickstarter pledge manager by Awaken Realms co-founder Marcin Świerkot, who is CEO of both businesses. The company transitioned into a full crowdfunding site in 2022, with Świerkot setting his sights on beating Kickstarter at its own game in the tabletop sector.

Awaken Realms, meanwhile, began life as a miniature painting studio in 2014, before expanding into board game publishing a couple of years later.

The company garnered early success with a Kickstarter for This War of Mine: The Board Game in 2016, before the £3m Nemesis Kickstarter campaign in 2018 formed a springboard for the company to begin creating ever more intricate and expansive miniatures-focused tabletop projects.

Awaken Realms raised more than $12.1m for its Nemesis Retaliation Gamefound campaign at the end of 2024, making it one of the biggest board game crowdfunding campaign of all time alongside Frosthaven ($12.9m) and Kingdom Death Monster 1.5 ($12.39m).