“It's on us to maintain a high-quality bar,” Riot says, to which fans responded, “Is the high-quality bar in the room with us?”
Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends (LoL) and League of Legends: Wild Rift (Wild Rift), has responded to the community and fan backlash following the controversy surrounding an allegedly AI-produced video for Wild Rift's China third anniversary.
David “PapaSmoothie” Xu, Executive Producer of Wild Rift, posted the apology on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday (6 August):
In the post, Xu called the video a “creator-made” video that “did not hit the mark”. “When we post content on our official channels, it’s on us to maintain a high-quality bar and be clear about where it came from,” he added. He then thanked everyone for the feedback and promised that the team “can and will do better.”
Xu did not admit in his post that the video was produced using generative AI.
Fans erupt over Riot’s “creator-made” and “did not hit the mark” response
Fans and members of the League of Legends community remain unsatisfied by the company’s response regarding the issue. On X (formerly Twitter), popular community members and creators like Spideraxe replied directly to the post to express disappointment and dissatisfaction.
“Even if it was Tencent who commissioned and published it, you guys in LA need to have a firmer grasp on who works on WR,” they said, adding that it was “insulting to the Chinese playerbase to think having AI slop be acceptable for an event.”
Other players on X also chimed in, like @Matamer_ who pointed out that “hit the mark” wasn’t the best choice of words, because clearing the video for posting shows “there’s a lack of care somewhere.”
On Reddit, the response was just as scalding.
“Is the high-quality-bar in the room with us?” Redditor Certain_Guiddance_703 said. Others like juliusxyk and Nazon6, poked fun at the term “creator-made”, with Plague-Anon joking that “It sure was made by scraping lots of creators’ works.”
Redditor kevinthedot had a lot of thoughts on the matter, calling it “some extreme b******* of a response,” pointing out that there was “no mention at all of it being clearly full AI, and trying to claim it's ‘creator-made’,” before pointing out the various mistakes the video had like the spelling of the “3rnd Anniversay,” to the skins the champions wore that seemed to be the result of a failed AI prompt.
Redditor Cranelotus also criticised the “did not hit the mark/…missed the mark" statement, calling it a “low committal, non-apologetic responsibility-avoiding phrase. It screams lack of taking ownership" and "an insult to the consumer while also sidestepping the actual issue.”
