Developers from Bloober Team, Jagex, 11 bit studios and the independent scene have told Rock Paper Shotgun that "there's nothing worse than an AI-generated pitch" — a blunt signal of how AI-generated materials are now actively damaging studios' chances in an already punishing prototype funding market.

The interview piece gathers perspectives from teams across the Polish development scene and beyond, all describing the same structural problem: finding money to fund a videogame prototype before a project can attract a publisher or platform deal remains one of the hardest gates in the industry.

What does the funding gap actually look like?

The developers frame prototype funding as a distinct hurdle from full production financing. A studio can have a concept and a team, but without a playable vertical slice or proof-of-concept build, publishers routinely decline to commit. That forces teams to self-fund, take contract work, or pitch to funds and grant programmes where competition is intense.

For independent developers especially, this pre-production stage consumes savings and time with no guarantee of return. The developers speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun describe the process as bruising — repeated rejections, opaque decision-making from funders, and pitch materials that must stand out in crowded queues.

Why are AI-generated pitches backfiring?

The headline quote comes directly from the developers' warning to fellow teams: "There's nothing worse than an AI-generated pitch." The message to studios is operational, not ideological. Funders and publishers reviewing submissions now encounter volumes of machine-generated pitch documents, and they have learned to spot them. A pitch that reads as templated or synthetic signals that the team behind it has not done the foundational thinking a prototype requires.

The practical takeaway for studios: pitch materials need to demonstrate genuine, specific understanding of the game, the team's capability, and the market — the kind of specificity that generic AI output flattens out. Developers advising peers in the piece treat authentic, tailored pitching as a survival skill in the current climate.

Who is saying this?

The piece draws on voices from:

• Bloober Team — the Polish studio behind a string of horror titles, now operating at AAA-adjacent scale;
• Jagex — the UK studio and publisher best known for RuneScape, which also reviews and partners on external projects;
• 11 bit studios — the Warsaw-based developer and publisher of This War of Mine and Frostpunk;
• Independent developers navigating the funding circuit firsthand.

The combination matters: both funders and fund-seekers describe the same environment, which gives the warning about AI pitches weight from the receiving end of submissions as well as the sending end.

What changes for studios and teams?

For studios planning to seek prototype funding, the developers' account suggests several concrete adjustments:

• Treat the pitch document as a craft product, not a form to fill — funder attention is scarce and rejections come fast.
• Avoid AI-generated boilerplate entirely; reviewers at publishers and funds now penalise it.
• Budget realistically for the prototype phase, since self-funding through pre-production is the default path when external money falls through.
• Expect a long, repetitive cycle of applications and rejections before a deal lands.

For publishers and funds, the dynamic cuts the other way: as AI-generated submissions proliferate, screening processes will likely tighten further, raising the bar for the human quality of every pitch in the queue.

What to watch

The wider signal worth tracking is whether publishers and public funds formalise their stance on AI-assisted submissions — explicit disclosure requirements or screening rules would harden what is currently an informal penalty into policy.