In NHL 27, EA SPORTS is using generative AI for some of the commentary. US commentator John Buccigross has no problem with this – but the community takes a much more critical view of its use.
Artificial intelligence and voice work – a controversial topic for some time now. In the dubbing industry in particular, there are now contracts in which voice actors are expected to agree to their voices being used to train AI. Voice actors and their unions are fighting back against this. For example, Santiago Ziesmer recently turned down work on a production in which he was to lend his voice to Steve Buscemi once again.
However, the issue has not only reached television but also the world of video games. One person who is less bothered by this is the American sports commentator John Buccigross, who can now be heard as a commentator in EA SPORTS NHL 27. However, not all the sounds heard in the game are genuine.
On the Chirping Zebra’s podcast, he confirmed that EA SPORTS uses generative AI to create additional lines of commentary. Neither he nor Darren Pang, who virtually guides him through the matches, have a problem with this. “They played me a few recordings of my own voice. You think to yourself: ‘Wow, that’s actually pretty good!’ If that means less work for the same pay, I’m on board,” said Buccigross.
“… if he just wanted a quick buck”
However, Buccigross is pretty much alone in this view. The community’s verdict is significantly more critical. Among other things, people are criticising the fact that the AI-generated passages sound repetitive and that players’ names are sometimes pronounced differently.
“I don’t know if they didn’t have the money to buy clean recordings of his voice from the broadcasters. It’s so bad when he mispronounces names that he would normally never mispronounce. It’s rubbish. But I completely understand if he just wanted a quick buck,” writes Reddit user ‘box-art’, for example.
Whilst users primarily complained about the result, very few of them found EA SPORTS’ approach to using AI fundamentally problematic.