It was a placeholder texture that was always intended to be replaced by actual art made by a human. It was overlooked accidentally and promptly replaced. So no, it isn't a very different thing. It was never supposed to be part of the game or even a significant part of its development.
Why not? If the tools weren't available, they'd have used stock art or something super basic and crappy looking, which would've been just as good as a placeholder. But the tools were available.
In 2025 it makes sense for companies to have policies against using generative AI tools even for stuff like this because of the systemic effects of normalized use. But in 2022, it wouldn't have been a thing. Nobody would have thought twice about it. Just a neat new thing that does the job.
The only takeaway is that the Indie Game Awards' rule is overly restrictive. Woops, one of your contracted artists used a GenAI model to generate a music playlist to set the mood while he was working on your game, you're disqualified and the fact that you didn't come forward with this information immediately makes you a liar. Obviously absurd. If they're going to take a strong anti-AI stance, it should be more realistic. At some point, maybe even already, every single competitor should be disqualified but isn't aware or forthcoming about it, so what's the rule actually doing except rewarding dishonesty?
Pure mathematicians often answer questions that really only other pure mathematicians care about, but occasionally their results or techniques have relevance in other fields, so universities will pay them to work on this stuff and publish papers. Usually part of the job is applying for grants to fund your research and teaching students.
Yep, I just double checked and I think it's all remote connections, not just relayed ones. You can probably get around this by setting up a wireguard tunnel or something to make Plex think you're connecting locally, but it's definitely going to be easier to just use Jellyfin if you haven't already set that up
IIRC it's a charge to use their relay servers, which you only need if you don't have a direct connection to your media server. Setting up a direct connection isn't always easy or possible especially for non-technical users, and does come at some small expense to Plex, so it's not that weird to be a paid feature. But if Jellyfin meets your needs that's a good thing, it's probably got a better shot at avoiding enshittification long term.
edit: I was not remembering correctly, even direct (remote) connections are paywalled. You'd need to use some kind of tunnel to make Plex think you're connecting locally.
I'm not sure what exactly baking the ingredients in adds, but it definitely adds something. Weirdly more appetizing to me right now than an equivalent traditional sandwich. Would annihilate this 👍
A placeholder isn't what they're working on either. It's a placeholder for something someone else is working on but hasn't completed yet.