Saber Adds an AI Disclosure to Rideshare Stimulator on Steam

Saber Interactive has added an AI disclosure to the Steam page for Rideshare "Stimulator", days into a public fight between its CEO and a writer who says ChatGPT took her job. The label was absent when the game went on Steam on July 30. It covers AI-generated dialogue in a secondary mode and a set of radio stations that mix human-made and AI-generated music, with the AI stations marked as such inside the game.

Stella Sacco started this on 11 August. She wrote on Bluesky that she had been lead writer on the game, that the passenger voices were AI, and that Steam carried no disclosure.

"Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development"

— Stella Sacco

Her LinkedIn puts her at Saber from July 2023 to July 2024, working on Stuntman: Hollywood and other titles in the publisher's portfolio. That one is a stunt driver game built on a Universal Pictures licence, with scenes pulled from Back to the Future, Knight Rider and Death Race, and it has no release date either. She had mentioned the replacement before on social media without naming the project, since the game had not been announced.

Saber's first response went to PC Gamer, and it denied the core claim: no writers were replaced with AI on Rideshare or any other game, the writing staff has tripled since 2023, and real people wrote the story. The same statement conceded that a free ride mode uses AI because the number of passengers in it is infinite, and that none of the company's 3,000-plus employees need to worry about being replaced.

Sacco did not move. She told PC Gamer she was taken off the project so ChatGPT could write the remaining text, including planned live updates, and that she posted about it at the time. In her account, her manager argued to keep her while an executive above him pushed AI because gamers like new technology and it would market well. She also said her problem is with one or two people at Saber, not with UNIGINE, the studio building the game.

Then CEO Matthew Karch answered through This Week Video Games, and the argument stopped being about disclosure.

"Stella who? I had to ask Claude"

— Matthew Karch

Karch said the reveal had always been planned until Sacco broke a confidentiality clause, that she was replaced by someone more talented and fired a few months later for other reasons, and that in hindsight he would have been happy to replace her with AI. Sacco published a response the same day, arguing that he was lashing out because he did not want the AI use known.

"that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company"

— Stella Sacco

I have put real hours into SnowRunner, so I know Saber can build driving that rewards patience instead of speed, and Rideshare's passenger stories are the only reason I would install this one. Watching the CEO of that same company call a writer a publicity stunt and then joke about a chatbot looking her up is enough to keep my money away from it. My guess is that the free ride mode is the part players stop opening after a week, once the infinite passengers start sounding like the same passenger.

Sacco gave IGN her own version of the timeline: she was removed with the intention of being replaced by AI, and AI was already running on the project for voice or text the whole time she worked on it. Karch answered that plenty of studios now use Eleven Labs for prototyping, and repeated that she left for unrelated reasons. He called the whole week a sideshow and a publicity stunt, pointing out that she came off the project three years ago and that Saber's writing team has grown since.

Karch told IGN the Steam page would be updated once the feature set was final, that the free ride mode is not the core experience, and that building it took two writers and multiple coders working with AI tools. By his own account, the mode cost Saber more than skipping it would have.

"AI can and should help shape gamer experiences"

— Matthew Karch

He also said the point was never staff reductions, and pointed at Digic, the cinematics studio Saber owns, as something he has no interest in handing to AI tools. His argument is that the tools improve every week and the way to stay ahead of them is to keep hiring.

A developer filling in the Steam content survey has to describe any AI used to create content that ships with the game and reaches players, including artwork, sound, narrative and localization. Background tools do not need reporting, but generated dialogue and generated music do. The page went up on July 30 without any of that, and the game's Steam forum filled with people demanding it before Saber moved.

Saber announced Rideshare "Stimulator" this summer after insider Intercellular leaked Rideshare development, cover art and screenshots included. It puts the player in the city of Ottoberg, driving passengers to destinations under time limits and traffic rules, building a rating that raises tips and grows the business, with car repairs and cleaning between jobs. UNIGINE develops it on the Unigine 2 engine, Saber publishes, and it is heading to PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S without a date. The minimum spec asks for a GTX 1060 and 16GB of RAM, the recommended sheet wants an RTX 3070, and both need 50GB on an SSD. Saber also has Turok: Origins, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 and an untitled John Wick game in progress, none of them dated.

Each passenger is supposed to have a backstory they tell during the ride, and the Steam blurb promises rides that are captivating, hilarious or just plain weird. Saber has now confirmed that some of those voices come out of a model, and split the game into the written part and the infinite part.