This week, UK Games Expo, the largest tabletop convention in the United Kingdom, unveiled a new set of policies regarding AI-made games at the event. Following backlash in previous years from the expo’s cozying relationship with AI, organizers have decided to reverse course, banning AI made games from participating with minimal exceptions.
“The organisers at their absolute discretion will require Exhibitors who do exhibit, display or sell such items to remove them,” reads the new policy, “and in the case that this request is refused may close down such exhibitor’s stands and ban them from future participation.”
Founded in 2007 and hosted in Birmingham each summer, UKGE is one of the most crucial events in the tabletop scene. As reported by Rascal’s Khee Hoon Chan, UKGE will be following other major international fairs like Gen Con by prohibiting AI generated works on the show floor. It comes after a bit of grievance. On top of complaints of having to share the convention with slop peddlers, UKGE has been chastised in the past over sponsored social media posts with the AI gestated Gates of Krystalia in 2025. Now staff will be allowed to bounce AI displays from the floor, and other vendors won’t have to field skepticism about their own work.
UKGE does leave one exception open for AI game making, saying that it will not ban those who used AI for “minor editing and aiding in production or accessibility.” While AI has been pushed by major players in games and commercial entertainment, the same trends have not been mirrored in the tabletop world. Some of the biggest companies in the industry are refreshingly hardliners, refusing to roll the dice on unpopular tech. Warhammer creators Games Workshop forbid employees from using AI in their process (though it hasn’t prevented accusations to the contrary). While executives elsewhere in the game world hope AI will lean up headcounts and development costs, tabletop players may have a more intimate relationship with cool handcrafted goblin art and tactile gremlin figurines.
