Saber Interactive has updated the Steam page for its upcoming driving satire Rideshare Stimulator with a detailed AI disclosure, capping off a chaotic week that saw CEO Matt Karch publicly feud with a former lead writer before ultimately apologizing to her.

The controversy kicked off shortly after Saber revealed Rideshare Simulator's announcement trailer. Former Saber lead writer Stella Sacco , who worked at the studio from July 2023 to July 2024 on titles including Stuntman: Ignition , publicly claimed she had been removed from the Rideshare project partway through development and replaced with ChatGPT , without any disclosure on the game's Steam page.

Saber initially responded with a boilerplate denial. Karch then escalated things considerably, telling press outlets " Stella who ?" and claiming he'd never spoken to or even seen her, while also stating that he would, frankly, in retrospect, have been happy to replace her with AI. He simultaneously confirmed to IGN that generative AI is genuinely used in the game , framing the Steam disclosure as something planned all along that would go up once it was finalized.

That disclosure has now gone live. According to the updated Steam page , Rideshare Stimulator's main campaign story, characters, and dialogue are written entirely by a human writing team. AI, however, is used elsewhere : voice generation, some localization work, the game's optional "Free Ride" mode (which uses AI-generated passenger missions and dialogue separate from the core campaign), and select in-game radio stations featuring AI-generated music, which are clearly labeled as such.

Karch has defended the use of AI in Free Ride specifically by noting the mode required adding two writers and multiple coders to work with AI tools to try and get a reasonable result, arguing the net cost of the feature ended up higher than simply leaving it out, and that he sees AI as something that can and should help shape gamer experiences.

Over the weekend, Sacco revealed she'd received a lengthy private email from Karch apologizing unreservedly for the awful way he spoke to her publicly. Karch has characterized his own conduct as having " shot first and thought second ." Sacco confirmed she accepts the apology, though she says she's still deciding what it would actually mean to make it right for her going forward.

The resolution wasn't entirely clean, however: in the same public reflection where Karch alluded to reaching out to Sacco privately, he also took a swipe at Portal writer Chet Faliszek , who had criticized Karch's handling of the situation, including in a 26-minute YouTube video , calling him an "unsuccessful writer."

A LinkedIn thread between Karch and Faliszek adds another layer to the saga and paints an even messier picture. In one comment, Karch pushed back directly at Faliszek, arguing he'd drawn conclusions without asking questions and suggesting that mutual contact (and fellow Saber exec) Tim Willits could have given him proper context on the situation had he asked. Karch also claimed that Faliszek's video and accompanying commentary had led to real-world harassment:

I received death threats and other hateful mail from many people as a result of that video.

Karch further stated that Faliszek's video and tweets went beyond fair criticism of his conduct as CEO, arguing that Faliszek had told his audience Karch "wasn't particularly well-endowed" and encouraged viewers to "accost me and mock me," which Karch characterized as no longer acceptable regardless of how normalized that kind of banter may once have been.

Faliszek, for his part, replied that his criticism was never about Karch being a CEO, but specifically about Karch speaking out negatively about a past employee in a way to try and harm their career , which he described as "punching down," adding that making videos like that isn't typical for him.

Karch subsequently thanked Faliszek for agreeing to take the video down (which, however, doesn't look like it's actually happening ), while sharing a screenshot of one of Faliszek's tweets as an example of the personal tone he objected to: a post in which Faliszek argued that Sacco's account had been vindicated by Saber's own admissions, but also included a crude insult about Karch's anatomy . Karch maintained in his replies that he wasn't disputing the underlying facts of the Sacco situation, only objecting to how personal the public discourse around it had become on both sides.

About the author : With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.

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