A game studio and one of its former writers are now openly contradicting each other over whether AI took her job. Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch says his company never replaced any writers with AI on the upcoming Rideshare “Stimulator” game, according to The Verge AI. Former lead writer Stella Sacco tells a very different story, and the gap between their accounts is what makes this worth watching.
What Happened
The dispute went public after Sacco posted on Bluesky that she was lead writer on the game and that Saber “replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development,” per The Verge AI. She added that “all the passenger voices were AI too,” and suggested the studio either changed direction or isn’t disclosing the AI use on Steam.
Karch pushed back in a statement to The Verge. “Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI,” he said, referring to the game developed by Unigine. He framed AI as a long-standing tool, saying the studio has used it “to improve or enhance gameplay experiences and improve NPC behavior” since Saber was founded in 2001. He also claimed none of the company’s “3000+ employees have to worry about being replaced by AI.”
Here’s where it gets complicated. Karch’s own statement confirms the game will feature “an experimental, free-ride mode that by necessity incorporates AI as the number of passengers in the game is infinite.” The Verge AI reports the teaser trailer already appears to include AI-generated writing and audio for the simulated riders. The Steam listing currently carries no disclosure about generative AI.
The Writer’s Rebuttal
Sacco isn’t backing down. Responding to Karch’s statement, she told The Verge AI: “you can’t meaningfully say both ‘writers wrote the story’ and ‘computers wrote the text.'” Her argument is direct. If some rides she wrote ship alongside rides that AI wrote or will write, then AI was used and she was still replaced, which she says is exactly what Saber told her it was doing back in December 2023.
“They’re trying to have it both ways,” she said. “You can’t win on the labor part of the statement while you admit you took work away from labor in the next part.”
Why This Matters
What stands out here is the pattern, not just the players. Studios increasingly want the marketing win of “we still hire humans” while shipping features that lean on generative AI for the parts that scale infinitely. Those two claims can coexist in a press statement. They’re harder to reconcile on a real credits page.
A few things this story surfaces for anyone tracking AI in creative work:
- Disclosure is the pressure point. Steam requires developers to declare generative AI use. A missing disclosure on a game that visibly uses AI voices and text invites exactly this kind of scrutiny.
- “NPC behavior” is doing a lot of work. Framing AI as an old tool for game logic is very different from using it to generate dialogue and voices that a paid writer used to produce.
- “We’re still hiring” isn’t the same as “no one was replaced.” A company can grow headcount overall and still cut a specific role on a specific project. Both can be true at once.
This is significant because it’s a preview of the labor fight coming to more studios. The teaser is out, the writer named names, and the CEO answered on the record. That combination rarely stays quiet.
What to Watch Next
- Whether Saber updates the Steam listing with an AI disclosure before launch.
- Whether the final credits list Sacco as lead writer or quietly reduce her role.
- Whether other writers on similar projects start speaking up now that one has.
For practitioners, the takeaway is practical: if you write for games, get your role, your credit, and any AI-augmentation terms in writing early. The line between “enhanced by AI” and “replaced by AI” is being drawn case by case, in public.
Full statements from both Karch and Sacco are detailed in The Verge AI’s reporting.