The developers of Catly, a game about cats, have denied using generative AI to create the announcement trailer that debuted last week at The Game Awards, and have also rejected suggestions that their game is built on blockchain technology or makes use of NFTs.
We missed Catly when it was announced during last week's show, mainly because it came hot on the heels of big reveals of The Witcher 4, Elden Ring: Nightreign, and the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC release date—it was a pretty busy moment. Viewers who weren't madly scrambling to cover the show saw it, though, and the video made quite a splash—for all the wrong reasons. Accusations about the use of generative AI in the creation of the video quickly began flying on Reddit and Steam, driven by the uncanny valley look of the trailer and a general vibe described by one redditor as a "weird AI tinge."
Some pushed back, saying generative AI isn't capable of producing a video of that quality; others suggested it was some sort of mix of AI-generated characters that were then modeled and animated traditionally. There was no smoking gun, but suspicions were heightened by images on the Steam page, which—for lack of a better descriptor—just have that look:
Catly developer SuperAuthenti says it's not so, though. A PR representative authorized to speak on behalf of Catly told PC Gamer the company did not use generative AI to produce either the video or the game, and that it's surprised by the allegations because "we do not think there are any AI tools that can produce a video like that."
To reinforce the point, the representative shared a brief video showcasing elements of the trailer in a pre-finalized state, without textures and backgrounds applied. I'm not an animator so I can't swear to its veracity, but it did appear to demonstrate conventional animation techniques being used in the making of the video.
The trailer wasn't the only part of the Catly reveal to raise alarms. The Steam page, which has since been updated but remains available in its prior state via the Wayback Machine, said virtually nothing about the nature of the game, but contained what appeared to be a bizarre jumble of keywords in the game description: "A Cat Open World, with Beautiful Cats. Hyperrealism, Actions, Cuddle, Speed, Islands, Fashion, Dreams, Snow, Robots, Plants -- all with and via Cats." It also included a Steam update link to a "Catly fashion collection" of "cloth and accessories that redefine sophistication."
The closing seconds of the trailer also seemed to point to many different ways to dress up your pretend cats, which some took as an indicator of NFTs in the offing.
The rep said there is "zero blockchain technology" in Catly, however, and "no NFTs." Furthermore, SuperAuthenti has "never issued" any blockchain currency or NFTs, nor does it own any.
Questions linger, though, because SuperAuthenti co-founder Kevin Yeung is also a co-founder of TenthPlanet, a game studio that is (or perhaps was) working on blockchain games, according to this 2022 VentureBeat report. One of them is called Alien Mews, "a digital cat life simulation metaverse" being built in Unreal Engine 5—just like Catly. Also raising some red flags on that front is the fact that Yeung seems to have nuked his LinkedIn account: A link to his page pops in search results, but the actual account has been deleted.
Whether or not the criticism is founded, it's having an impact. Influencer Pokimane, who posted an enthusiastic tweet about Catly after it was revealed, claimed she had "no idea" about the alleged use of AI and eventually deleted the tweet. (Similar tweets posted by Ninja and Felicia Day are still up.)
On the other hand, Ben Brode, the former game director of Hearthstone and currently chief development officer on Marvel Snap, stood behind his endorsement of the game on the Catly Steam page. "I actually got to watch like 20m of gameplay footage and I thought it looked cool!" he wrote on Bluesky. "I got zero kickbacks. If I got played I got played but it looked real and I was excited and I said so. You really think I would sell out my rep for NFTs?"
As mentioned earlier, the Catly Steam page was updated today to provide a clearer look at what the game is all about, and now has a new trailer showcasing the game in action, with all sorts of cats wandering around in all sorts of outfits. Notably, the link to the Catly fashion collection has been removed.
Questions remain, and all told it still looks a little sketchy at this point, but that's as far as it goes for now. It's possible, for instance, that Catly started life as an NFT game (perhaps Alien Mews) and was reworked to remove them in order to enable a release on Steam, which doesn't allow games with NFTs or cryptocurrency—you don't actually need NFTs to sell stuff to people, after all. We'll get a closer look at what's actually going on next year: A release date hasn't been announced but SuperAuthenti said "more on Catly will be revealed in 2025."
