Takiya Iijima (also known as Takeo Iijima), the Japanese developer behind titles such as Gakkou De Atta Kowai Hanashi and the Apathy series of visual novels, recently came under scrutiny from fans regarding a promotional video for a mysterious new Apathy entry, which was first teased on August 1. After initially dodging the topic, Iijima revealed that the video was indeed created by generative AI and shared his stance on the technology (as reported by Game*Spark).
As Iijima sees it, generative AI allows him to “almost perfectly” create visuals with the exact casting he envisioned (the trailer is generated in a live-action style). His statement then turns to indie development, with him saying he wants to “do what he wants to do” for the remainder of his life. “I’ll release the name game under 7Korobi8Korogari (his indie studio) as an indie game for less than 1,000 JPY, so I won’t be causing any trouble for the major labels.”
Iijima also addressed issues such as copyright concerns regarding generative AI training and the rights of actors and illustrators in his livestream, as Game*Spark reports. The developer said that he “confirmed that the copyright issues were cleared,” and he is commercially using multiple AI tools at a cost of several hundred thousand yen per month. These AI tools are apparently being trained using his studio’s own copyrighted works.
In terms of the creation process, Iijima had this to say: “We are certainly not just slapping things together with the press of a button; we spend time meticulously fine-tuning prompts to build character images from scratch based on the vision in our minds.”
He also mentions that using AI tools allows him to create entertaining content at an affordable price of under 1,000 JPY with just one or two people.
Iijima expressed his desire to experiment more with AI-assisted creation in the indie gaming space, with no plans to use the technology for home consoles (the latter of which has major publishers and numerous stakeholders who are stricter about AI use). On the other hand, Iijima emphasizes that he maintains a clear distinction on when to use generative AI tools, as the script for the upcoming Apathy sequel will be written entirely by him.
A new Apathy game is currently in development.
