100 Thieves has apologized after an image of their upcoming Old School RuneScape merch drop clearly showed a T-shirt with AI-designed elements.
100T stated that they “did not live up to our own standards” and are “actively working with Jagex on the collaboration as we look to make things right” before the full release of the collab.
100 Thieves delete controversial AI T-shirt post
Announced on September 29, 100 Thieves shared a teaser for an Old School RuneScape + 100 Thieves merch drop on social media.
The announcement was quickly followed by a teaser for a T-shirt themed around Old School RuneScape’s skills, which are displayed as 23 trainable skills in a 4×8 grid in the game.
However, users quickly realised that the grid contained a few errors, noting that the ‘Defence’ symbol lost its shield, leaving only a cross; The ‘Mana’ symbol’s North Star was now a hockey mask; The ‘Herb Picking’ skill now seemingly displayed a maple leaf… The list goes on and on.
The skills were so clearly wrong, and in some cases so bizarre, that the design immediately triggered people’s suspicion that it was AI-generated, leading to the removal of the post showcasing the T-shirt.
100 Thieves apologize for AI T-shirt gaffe
Following that incident, 100 Thieves posted an apology, admitting, “The design clearly had AI in it and we missed it.”
Explaining how the error had occurred, 100T noted a rushed schedule for the merch collaboration, sharing, “We first started conversations with Jagex to work on this project in July. We were beyond excited, and we took on this collaboration knowing we had to deliver this with a little more than a month’s time to design, review, approve, and manufacture the apparel.
“To speed things up, we worked with multiple graphic designers to ensure we hit the deadline. However, during the last phase of the tee design, one of our designers used AI to hurriedly edit the piece and we pushed a sample to production for our photoshoot.”
The esports org went on to renounce AI in clothing design, stating, “100 Thieves was built by designers, artists, creators, and gamers that pour their soul into defining what gaming culture should be.
“AI has no place in our apparel design. A principle we share with Jagex, whose games and artwork are built on the creativity and craft of human artists and developers, and would not have approved of the use of AI in this.”
The org apologized for the error, ending their statement with, “Sorry to the OSRS community and to our fans, we clearly did not live up to our own standards. We are actively working with Jagex on the collaboration as we look to make things right.”
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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