I mean they mostly used it for textures, right? Those are often generated from a combination of noise and photography, it’s not like they were building the game out of lego bricks of other people’s art.

I don’t see how it’s significantly different than sampling in music, it’s just some background detail to enhance the message of the art.

Obviously modern AI is a nightmare machine that cannot be justified, but I could imagine valid artistic uses for the hypothetical AI you described.