Saber CEO scorns writer who says she was fired in favor of AI with confusing, combative statement

After noticing the announcement of upcoming driving sim Rideshare Stimulator, writer Stella Sacco commented on social media that she’d once been the game’s lead writer but had been fired in favor of ChatGPT. The game’s publisher, Saber Interactive, denied the claim, stating that while it did use generative AI in the development of Rideshare Stimulator (which has not yet been disclosed on its Steam page), the story was written “entirely by real people.”

Sacco acknowledged that the studio may have changed direction since she was removed from the project in 2023, but stood by her recollection. That could have been the end of it, but now a confusing, combative follow-up from Saber CEO Matt Karch is raising eyebrows.

In a statement sent to This Week in Video Games, Karch claimed that Sacco violated a confidentiality agreement by stating that she was fired in favor of AI, but also denied the assertion, crediting Rideshare Stimulator’s “entire story script” to an unnamed writer.

Karch also stated that he didn’t know who Sacco was until he consulted an AI chatbot, but nevertheless claimed that she was replaced by “someone more talented” and that he would retrospectively be “happy to replace her with AI” because AI is “programmed to be honest.”

Here’s Karch’s full statement:

“Stella who? 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.

“Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.

“We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers.

“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 on Bluesky, standing by her original claim.

“I’ve seen the statement by Matt Karch, the CEO of Saber Entertainment, and all of the truly horrendous things he said about me. I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he’s lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game,” said the writer.

“Everything I said was true. Here’s more truth: 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. This screed will be many people’s first exposure to the Saber brand.”