Amazon is selling fake strategy guides for unreleased games, generated by AI.
It has been reported that Amazon is selling AI-generated strategy guides for games that have not yet been released or whose details have not yet been announced. The covers and product descriptions are made to look plausible at first glance, raising concerns that buyers may mistake them for official guidebooks.
You CAN judge a book by its cover: AI slop video game guides are a thing
Amazon Is Awash With AI-Written Guideslop For Unfinished Games
https://kotaku.com/amazon-ai-game-guidebooks-alien-isolation-gears-of-war-2000711365
French 3D artist Ricoly has reported finding a strategy guide for 'Alien Isolation 2' on Amazon.
Alien: Last Survivor is a sequel to the Alien movie series, and its release was only officially announced in June 2026.
Ricoly's investigation revealed that he also found strategy guides for other unreleased titles, including 'Control: Resonant', 'Gears of War: E-Day', and 'Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced'. All of them have similar cover designs, similar cover art and text, and the author names are mostly in a similar format.
In the case of the Gears of War: E-Day strategy guide, the Amazon product description began with the chatbot's first line stating, 'This is an Amazon-style product description designed to sell your book by appealing to emotions, being persuasive, and focusing on the reader, making it easy to purchase.'
So, Ricoly actually bought strategy guides for 'Gears of War: E-Day' and 'Alien: Last Survivor'.
Turning the cover to the first page, Ricoly burst out laughing because the title was written in huge letters using a font not commonly found in strategy guides.
On the next page was a notice stating, 'Please refrain from filing a lawsuit.'
The table of contents uses the Arial font, and despite being a table of contents, it lacks page numbers.
The content, without using any images, was presented in a novel-like format, listing the settings of existing works in lengthy texts. It also included chapters dealing with survival elements, psychological warfare, and cooperative play strategies that may or may not exist in the unreleased game.
For comparison, Ricoly presented a strategy guide published in an overseas game magazine. It includes detailed strategy information and reviews, along with illustrations and maps.
Afterward, Ricoly contacted Amazon's customer support and requested a refund and verification of the listings, resulting in some of the books being removed. However, there have been instances where similar products with altered covers and titles have reappeared after the removals, making it difficult to stop distribution with just one-off measures. By combining automated generation and on-demand printing, sellers can recreate products without holding inventory, meaning that products can be commercialized even with uncertain information, such as for titles before their release.
The mere fact that strategy guides are released before the game's launch is not illegal, but Ricoly points out that the problem lies in 'the fact that they are being sold as strategy guides while embedding specifications and content that cannot be verified.' Since the reliability of the content cannot be judged solely by the quality of the cover or its appearance in search results, it is necessary to check official announcements, sample readings, and customer reviews before purchasing. Game-related news media Kotaku stated that 'sales platforms, including Amazon, are required to further strengthen their review of products that include AI-generated displays and unverified information.'
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in AI, Web Service, Game, Posted by log1i_yk