Negotiating Legitimacy: Exploring Public Perceptions of Generative AI in Video Games

Generative AI (Gen-AI) is rapidly transforming creative and cultural industries. However, organizational adoption of Gen-AI raises serious questions about societal expectations, and organizational ethics. The video-game industry, at the intersection of creative labor, cultural expression, and software development, provides an appropriate setting for examining how Gen-AI reconfigures consumer perceived legitimacy of adopting controversial digital products. Drawing on user comments from Reddit, this study aims to explore how consumers evaluate an organization’s use of Gen-AI in game development. Preliminary findings reveal that legitimacy judgements are not only shaped by technical performance, but also by perceptions of moral appropriateness. Our findings further reveal consumers distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable uses of Gen-AI, and these evaluations shape broader expectations for responsible digital technology adoption, moving beyond the individual perceptions of a product to the social acceptance of the process.