Genshin Impact fanart contest winners caught using traced and AI-generated art: Officials' statement released

Several winners of the recent Genshin Impact Joyous Summer art contest have been found to have either traced or used AI-generated artwork. miHoYo has since disqualified them from the competition. This scandal gained some traction on July 19, 2023, so let's cover all the latest news on this specific topic. It's worth starting with the accusations before diving into the official statement.

Tracing and AI-generated artwork is generally frowned upon in art communities. The reason here is that a person responsible for such actions is either copying somebody else's work or letting a computer do it for them. Competitions often have prizes, so doing such immoral actions may lead to backlash, as evident below.

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Several Genshin Impact Joyous Summer fanart have been found to be traced or were AI-generated

So it would appear that not just one, but multiple winners of the Genshin Summer Art contest either traced from Granblue artist or just used AI generated art by u/Zoroarks_Angel in Genshin_Impact

Note: The first, second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth images in this Reddit post are no longer winners in the recent Genshin Impact fanart competition.

The above Reddit post shows some noteworthy evidence that indicates various Joyous Summer art winners could have been copying somebody else, either through tracing or AI generation. Note that the above Reddit embed contains what the victors created, plus the likely sources for such artworks.

This allegation already shows seven different fanart (two of the Reddit embed's eight photos are of the same image) that apparently copied something else. Just for reference, here is a closer look at one of the potentially traced or AI-generated art from the post above.

One of the alleged traced artworks (Image via HoYoverse)

In this case, Yoimiya and Klee are seen doing very similar poses to some official artwork. The shading and coloring are different, yet the outlines have inspired allegations claiming unofficial art was traced or AI-generated. Remember, one of the rules for this competition states:

"Entries submitted for this event must be original fan art created within the past month and have a high degree of completion. Unfinished sketches, works directly edited with graphic design tools (e.g. Photoshop, etc.), or works with non-original elements spliced together will not be considered eligible."

Thus, breaking that rule can make a person's entry disqualified.

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Official statement

The Japanese Genshin Impact Twitter has stated:

"Joyous Summer" We received feedback that some of the award-winning works violated the rules in a summer-themed doujin illustration contest. In order to ensure the fairness of the contest, we have decided to withdraw some of the works displayed on the result announcement page and cancel the eligibility of the participants to win the prize. Some users who have voluntarily deleted their posted works will be deemed to have waived their rewards."

That same tweet then mentions:

"In the future, we will continue to improve the award screening system for the contest. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Hence, Genshin Impact has disqualified certain people who were found to have violated the rules. The announcement here doesn't specifically state traces or AI-generated art, but it is worth mentioning that this statement came out after the allegations arose online.

Some Genshin Impact fans weren't happy that prizes had been awarded to people who were found cheating in the first place. There have been past instances of such incidents, like the infamous Albedo art tracing from two years ago, so this type of drama isn't new to the Genshin Impact community.

It will be interesting to see how miHoYo handles future fanart that may be traced or AI-generated.