A former lead writer at Saber Interactive who claimed she was replaced by ChatGPT during the development of one of its games says she’s now received a private apology from its CEO after he insulted her in a statement.
Last week Stella Sacco claimed on Bluesky that she had been replaced on Saber’s game Rideshare ‘Stimulator’ in favour of AI writing tools, also claiming that that her boss tried to push back against the decision to start using AI in the game, but that Saber CEO Matt Karch insisted on its use.
Saber initially responded with a statement denying that it replaced her or any other writer with AI, but stating that it was indeed using AI in the game’s development, something that had not yet been disclosed on the game’s Steam page.
Sacco responded with “They can say what they want – I was there,” adding: “They took me off the project to use ChatGPT to write the rest of the text, including planned live updates. If they changed plans in the intervening years, that’s great, but again – I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn’t once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game.”
Since this happened, the story has escalated dramatically, with Karch providing a statement to This Week in Video Games in which he questioned Sacco’s abilities and reputation.
“Stella who?” Sacco’s statement read. “I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set.”
His statement added: “As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.”
Sacco responded by condemning Karch’s statement, posting on Bluesky: “That statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber’s reputation than it ever could mine.”
Now Sacco claims that she has received a “long email” from Karch, in which he apologised for his comments.
“Last night, to my great surprise, I received a long email from Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch,” she wrote on Bluesky. “He apologized unreservedly for the awful way he spoke about me in the press. The email’s full text will stay between us; I’m not that kind of girl. But I have confirmed it was from him.
“Matt said he regretted escalating, and how people online were speaking about me. I’m not worried about being called slurs by random commenters – I’m a trans woman, that’s every day for me – but it stunk to have my skill and reputation built of 20 years in games publicly maligned by someone with institutional power.
“One thing I saw people saying about me, and that Matt fueled the flames of too, was that this is not my first time calling a former employer out, so I must love drama or be hard to work with. The truth is, bad treatment is everywhere in games – I’m just more willing than others to call it out. And I call it out so maybe others will be willing, too, when it happens to them.
“I’ve been firm from the beginning that I was telling the truth, I think we can all now agree that’s been borne out. Matt expressed a desire to make it right with me: at this time I don’t really know what that looks like for me, and I’ll have to take some time to sit with it, but I do at least accept his apology. None of this changes my stance on Al.
“Matt and I obviously differ on this, and as a CEO the consequences of its use fall on him, and unfortunately also on his employees. Apologies are simply in too short a supply these days to spurn one when it’s offered. God willing, this is the last statement I’ll need to make about this.”
The Steam page for Rideshare ‘Simulator’ has also been updated to include an AI generated content disclosure, noting that the game’s main Campaign mode uses AI voice generation, its Free Ride mode contains AI-written dialogue and its radio stations contain “a mix of radio stations featuring human-made music and AI-generated music”.
Karch has yet to publicly apologise to Sacco for his comments, but did post a lengthy message on his LinkedIn page about “the unwritten rules and expectations placed on modern CEOs”, claiming: “As a CEO, you aren’t afforded the luxury of responding in kind, even when you feel wronged. Anything beyond a measured statement invites further drama and tags you as the aggressor.”
