Good shout on the MANDEM side, because they did used to have their own unique team image without the help of AI (to my knowledge). I wonder what made them come up with this stupid idea.

Glad someone brought this up because it seems to me that many people don't unfortunately understand the ethical problems AI brings to the table. Any sort of non-human materials or "pieces of art" should not be propagated and spread around, even if the intentions behind it are innocent. They can admittedly be very amusing, but even light-hearted things have their limits.

Imo might as well restrict it. ETF2L already reverts inappropriate team names, images etc. And that comes from my own-hand experience when I wanted to call my team pen15 but had to change it to People Eliminating Nefariousness 15. This time we can perhaps let it slide, but for the future new rules should definetly be established, which clarify the usage of media in the league(s).

draw an image in paint and everybody will like it more than a crappy ai image. better yet get a 1983 dad joke from a news paper article and people will still prefer it to ur ai team pic

it's not like they earn $$$$ for making and selling AI graphic. It's just logo in free tf2 league, it's not even esport.
What next? Ban for using actors/singers/cartoon characters on avatars? Cuz you steal someone's graphic or celebrity face and put as YOUR avatar on steam/ingame.

I think anyone that knows the mandem guys would be able to deduce that the team picture is obviously a joke they thought was funny, though personally I think its a major improvement from the team picture they had before, I have a hard time beliving that is what syrus is referring to?

Their team is not an org, its not reasonable to expect them to hire a logo designer with their 0€ prize money winnings for a tf2 team.

I'm sorry, maybe I don't understand the ethical implications as well as some others do? I'd be happy to be educated on that topic. But didn't we already establish that its obviously AI slop and does not in any way rival actual graphic designers work?

If you are so worried about their logo, then maybe go make them one.

old ams hitting like a BRICK

idt u can even upload logos to rgl, last time we tried they like made their own version so they could sell stickers or something

It doesn't take hardly any time out of your day to photoshop a cool or funny little logo, and the one they had before has way more personality than the soulless one they have now, also generative ai is evil and awful

How is it a major improvement? When I look at MANDEM's previous team logo, there appears to be actual effort into the designing the image. Not familiar on who the reference-person in the image is though...

What bullshit is this, It shouldn't matter if they don't have a org, YOU ARE A TOP 3 PREM TEAM! Show some integrity. Might as well not submitted a team logo.

(By the way, MANDEM has made, according to liquidpedia, $390.17 (or 355.30€) @ PoLANd.tf 2025. So, 0€ in prize-winnings is kinda far off....)

Now, I'm not saying they should be forced to pay a logo, but there are sources out there to create a logo without the usage of AI, FOR FREE.

Obviously, as you mentioned, MANDEM is probably doing it for the "LOLs", but it doesn't stop others looking at that, and then being 'inspired' doing the same recycled garbage in lower-divs. It just promotes being unimaginative and discourages people to create unique logos because "AI can do it better" hur durr.

Sure I'll do it!

Below, I made two logos for MANDEM using canva (https://www.canva.com/), it only took me 10+ mins just rummaging through images, erasing the background, and experimenting with free fonts and "effects", and then I just screenshotted it.
Shit, if you want to go deeper, get the free month trial to tweak it even further, and then simply cancel it. Its easy as that.

https://i.imgur.com/J2Ui2vO.png

https://i.imgur.com/gc3ft2D.png

Are they any good? Fuck no, there's no "uniqueness" to its looks besides the fancy fonts, effects, and the few png images. It doesn't compare to a carefully designed logo... but its human at least.

@justin you literally have stolen pic of sportsman on avatar on steam profile and blame someone use ai avatar logo for team.
And other guy say ai is EVIL.

Yep if you use ai you'll become evil and satan himself

While I agree that using an ai / crappy / soulless logo is unbecoming of a top prem team, it's just unacceptable to have the league enforce it through the rules or issue bans for it. You will inevitably run into vague 50/50 situations, where maybe a part of the image was generated but the logo overall looks fine to most people. And I'm sure admins have more important things to do than fiddling with ai-detection tools to scan 100 team pictures each season.

If anyone can have a say in it, it should be the sponsors and orgs that put up their ads on the league website, as they tend to have pretty clear guidelines on what images and team names are okay with them. But even if you have a profile picture done in poor taste and it caused someone else have a negative visceral reaction somehow, you definitely shouldn't be forced into changing anything just because of that.

Conclusion:
stolen avatar from google graphic = fine
ai generated avatar = evil = perm ban

does the polish government know you're using the country's only computer to defend chatgpt sub-clipart on tftv

completely missing the point and then doubling it down award

i like joey gunz team logo. it is professional, engaging and thrilling.

Agreed, the JOEY GUNZ logo is fantastic.

Ai is evil and i'm satan, run

There are etf2l teams with google graphics pics made by someone else (stolen) as team logo and noone care
BUT when team use logo made by AI which use same google pics (stolen) and mix them to create new one people care

as someone that once spent hours trying to find the perfect penis on google images to recreate the a niche UK esport org (4Kings) avatar... i personally am disgusted

https://i.imgur.com/idovalI.jpeg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5d/4Kings_%28sports_team%29_logo.png

and they changed it :(

cuz we cant tell they're stolen and not original. they look human and nobodys gonna sit through every single picture on etf2l to find the actual original ones, even if stolen, they might at least be funny or have some soul. ai is crappy and u can tell at a glance

You can do it. Google graphic let you compare and find same or similar pictures in 3 clicks.

AI algorithms literally use same google graphics and mix them as you wish. Some better some worse.

There are arleady AI pictures and movies which are hard to recognize if they're made by human or AI. In 1 year -> few years it won't be possible at all.

ai could never recreate this

https://i.ibb.co/jk4DvYpB/image.png

"nobodys gonna sit through every single picture on etf2l to find the actual original ones" nor am i. if your pic looks original enough i reaaaally dont care and nor will anyone else, which leads me into the next thing

cool! this aint a movie or image created by the most sophisticated ai nasa has access to. this entire thread, rn, is about how we can literally all tell mandem's pic is ai - now that i think about it, this thread is so retarded lmfao. who even cares where ai will be in a year or two? this has nothing to do with this topic

Yes and no; OP was just using MANDEM as a more popular example to express the ramped use of ai logos in the competitive community (even if its a troll). More deeply, that these AI logos should be rejected for submission presently.

Well.... at least when it comes to NA. In RGL, you have to submit a logo for approval, and there's specified guidelines for what is allowed:

https://docs.rgl.gg/rules/global/1006/?h=logo#1006_1-team-names-tags-and-logos

Not familiar with the ETF2L protocols when it comes uploading a team logo, based on what I'm seeing, you guys can just post whatever you want lmao. With the obvious exception if its offensive or related to gambling:

https://rules.etf2l.org/docs/general-1/#110-team-and-player-sponsorships

https://rules.etf2l.org/docs/general-2#223-offensive-messages-nicknames-and-avatars-are-not-welcome

sorry guys I hate AI since today

shoutout to etf2l for letting us have a picture of me sucking my own big toe that they were forced to show on stream

any photo used for a icon that isnt of yourself or something you made is a fraudmaxing way of trying to take credit for someone elses work. using a cartoon or a funny picture someone else took/made to represent yourself is a way of morphing yourself into a different persons life experience. ai is doing that to a computer which is the most sad thing imagineable every team logo should be a group photo of the six players or maybe a picture of a good meal or a wood working project done by one of the members

I recreated one of my favourites from esea s26-29 ish era i cant even remember which invite team did this but "nex t season" has been in my vocabulary ever since

https://i.imgur.com/kisKIIo.png

if you havent let a team of yours use a horrible picture of you as their logo, did you really ever leave your mark on tf2?

Yea, AI looks bad. And gen AI is shitty for society as a whole.
I can see AMS' theory of it being a shitpost though.
I'd agree with AMS not to take it too seriously.
But I'd definitely disagree on it being better than the previous one

Banning AI pics isn't worth the effort of enforcing.
It looks bad, it's lifeless and it's like wearing a dunce cap.
I'd expect a Streisand Effect if a rule like it were implemented.
I think naming and shaming is a good approach though

Bit of a rant which derails from the OP: