The CEO of Saber Interactive addresses allegations concerning the replacement of a writer with AI

Interior view from a car dashboard at night, showing a digital instrument cluster and a touchscreen infotainment system with various app icons, overlooking a rainy city street with illuminated buildings, parked cars, streetlights, and a person standing by a parking meter.

Image credit: Saber Interactive

Update, August 13, 2026: Matt Karch, Chief Executive Officer of Saber Interactive, has addressed claims regarding Stella Sacco's replacement on the Rideshare Simulator project with ChatGPT.

Karch, in a statement to This Week In Video Games, reported Sacco breached a confidentiality agreement. He asserted she was succeeded by a "more talented" individual and discharged for multiple reasons months after.

Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set.

Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.

We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers.

As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.

Additionally, Karch explained that the Steam page for the game lacks AI disclosure and will be updated once details are finalized. "We are touting this experimental mode as a feature, not shying away from it," he stated.

Stella Sacco, in response on social media, criticized Karch's comments:

I've seen the statement by Matt Karch, the CEO of Saber Entertainment, and all of the truly horrendous things he said about me. I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he's lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game.

Everything I said was true. Here's more truth: that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber's reputation than it ever could mine. This screed will be many people's first exposure to the Saber brand.

I appreciate everyone's support, but people who know me know I'm a person of principle, and one of those principles is don't let the bastards get away with it. I'm comfortable with what I said, and everyone got to see what kind of man is running Saber.

Original story, August 12, 2026: Saber Interactive has rejected the notion that it replaced a writer with ChatGPT for its upcoming title, Rideshare Simulator.

These denials follow allegations made by Stella Sacco, claiming she was the lead writer before her removal mid-development. Sacco's LinkedIn indicates she held the lead writer position at Saber from July 2023 to July 2024. On Bluesky, she alleged, "I was lead writer on this one! And Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development. All the passenger voices were AI too. Either they changed direction at some point or they're not disclosing it on Steam."

Sacco further stated: "When this edict came down, I warned Matt Karch, who made the AI push, that players hated AI in Dec[ember] 2023 and they'd hate it even more by the time the game came out. I told him this pushback would happen. He didn't listen to me, he didn't listen to my boss, he seemingly didn't listen to anyone at all."

The studio assured PC Gamer: "Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game. In fact, Saber's staff of writers has tripled since 2023. Rideshare's story was written entirely by real people."

The company also noted the game will include an experimental mode using AI due to the "infinite" number of in-game passengers. "We are firm believers in using AI tools to improve or enhance gameplay experiences and improve NPC behavior as we have done since Saber was founded in 2001. As the industry has continued to contract, Saber continues to hire. None of our 3000+ employees have to worry about being replaced by AI."

Sacco has maintained her account. "They can say what they want – I was there, I even posted on Facebook about it at the time, and I have mentioned it on Bluesky several times without using the game’s title."

"They took me off the project to use ChatGPT to write the rest of the text, including planned live updates. If they changed plans in the intervening years, that's great, but again: I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn't once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game."

Currently, the game’s Steam page provides no disclosure of AI despite Steam's policy that mandates developers indicate generative AI content influencing the end-user experience.

In recent content from GamesIndustry.biz, AI’s role in coding and game development has been a topic of interest.