Amazon's marketplace is currently offering numerous AI-generated "guidebooks" for unreleased video games, a phenomenon that highlights the platform's struggles with low-quality, automatically generated content. These publications, often featuring AI-created cover art and marketing copy, provide fabricated information about games that have yet to launch. Examples include supposed guides for "Alien: Isolation 2," "Control: Resonant," and "Gears of War: E-Day."
The issue was brought to light by the Substack site Rick's Game Backlog, which noted the proliferation of these books while searching for game release dates on Amazon. The "Gear of War E-Day Game Guide: Tactical Breakdown of Conflict, Characters, and Urban Survival Systems," for instance, begins with a generic, AI-generated marketing blurb.
Upon purchasing some of these titles, the content was found to be poorly structured and devoid of actual gaming utility. One guide featured a table of contents presented as hyperlinks without page numbers, was laid out like a novel without images, and contained approximately 60 pages of AI-generated lore based on readily available online information. Chapters within these books detailed features that are not confirmed to be in the games, such as "Survival Mechanics" and "Psychological Warfare." Similarly, a guide for "Alien: Isolation 2" included a chapter on system requirements, despite the game's unconfirmed status.
While legitimate game guidebooks are often produced with early access to unfinished game builds to ensure timely release, these AI-generated publications appear to be entirely speculative. They are described as "hallucinated tomes of gibberish" that plagiarize existing online data. The pricing, often $20 or more, combined with convincing cover art and potential promotion through Amazon's recommendation system, presents a deceptive trap for unsuspecting consumers, including parents looking for gifts or gamers browsing for related titles.
These AI-generated "guide-slop" entries are not limited to unreleased titles. Similar publications exist for already released games, such as a guide for "Lies of P" by the same purported author of the "Alien: Isolation 2" entry, George D. Brogon. Other prolific AI authors, like Donald C. Campbell, are noted for creating guides for games including "The Adventures of Elliot," "Mina the Hollower," and "Star Fox." Many of these descriptions contain variations of the phrase "Step into the world of..."
Rick's Game Backlog has reportedly flagged these books with Amazon customer support, and while some were temporarily removed, they have reappeared on the platform. The author of the Substack post provides further detailed criticism of the discovered content and suggests alternative sources for quality game guides.