Honestly I feel like the games industry has had more of an issue with humanslop from large publishers making live service and derivative stuff over the past few years than indie devs using genAI today.
Because of how genAI works, it can’t simply be the lead creative force for a game or the game will be identical to other games using AI for lead creative. You’d end up with lantern keepers everywhere.
But if genAI would allow for new or displaced devs to compete with the scale and production values of the larger studios for passion projects that take true creative steps forward or risks, then as a gamer it’s a huge win and I’m all for it.
I want to see evolving tech move the medium forward, not just expand profit margins for large publishers with leadership that looks down on their players by downsizing staff and shrinking game scope to chase mobile and micro-transactions.
The industry is dying (without AI as a factor) due to how consolidation happened over the past few decades. Honestly the only possible way I see it getting saved is if something arrives that reduces production costs in a way that allows small independent teams to make games that compete at scale the way studios cropped up earlier on in gaming (1990s-2000s).
And this goes beyond just the development too. Legal, accounting, marketing, etc are all costs that are relatively much smaller for mega corps due to pooled resources than independent studios.
So we can either have: (a) no AI and large publishers buying up great talent to put on derivative BS like every major publisher did for the last decade, or (b) smaller studios that use AI to scale out both dev pipelines and business needs to compete against those large publishers as they prove themselves in the market to secure capital for expansion and future games.
Ultimately the market will decade, but my hopes are on the latter.
I think surgical use of it on small indie teams is going to be a game changer going forward.
Those teams will still need to be pushed forward by a strong creative vision, and integrity though.
Artistic assets, UI, character models, geometry, gameplay etc, will all need to be carefully curated and developed by human hands, because people can and will sniff out lazy development practices with AI, just as they already have with AAA studios pumping out garbage and cash grabs.
Games are a creative medium, and to be truly successful, developers will still need to be innovative and know their shit.
I don’t like AI currently, since it’s source is centralized and controlled mainly by large corporations with morally dubious intentions like replacing regular working people and tossing them to the curb.
But, I can’t deny that decentralized models going forward will be invaluable tools.
Just think about how tedious the process of retopography is in order to optimize animation rigs.
Having an “AI” tool that does this optimally will be helpful for artists and animators to spend more time on things that players will notice, and also result in better optimized games IF developers don’t just use the tool to cut corners.
The whole topic has a lot of nuance, and I honestly understand the angles for and against it
The cat’s out of the bag, can’t put it back in. Now we see how it plays out, but while I listed some reasons for its use, I can’t help but worry that it will just be used to displace actual creatives and just pump out the same shit over and over again.
Honestly I feel like the games industry has had more of an issue with humanslop from large publishers making live service and derivative stuff over the past few years than indie devs using genAI today.
Because of how genAI works, it can’t simply be the lead creative force for a game or the game will be identical to other games using AI for lead creative. You’d end up with lantern keepers everywhere.
But if genAI would allow for new or displaced devs to compete with the scale and production values of the larger studios for passion projects that take true creative steps forward or risks, then as a gamer it’s a huge win and I’m all for it.
I want to see evolving tech move the medium forward, not just expand profit margins for large publishers with leadership that looks down on their players by downsizing staff and shrinking game scope to chase mobile and micro-transactions.
The industry is dying (without AI as a factor) due to how consolidation happened over the past few decades. Honestly the only possible way I see it getting saved is if something arrives that reduces production costs in a way that allows small independent teams to make games that compete at scale the way studios cropped up earlier on in gaming (1990s-2000s).
And this goes beyond just the development too. Legal, accounting, marketing, etc are all costs that are relatively much smaller for mega corps due to pooled resources than independent studios.
So we can either have: (a) no AI and large publishers buying up great talent to put on derivative BS like every major publisher did for the last decade, or (b) smaller studios that use AI to scale out both dev pipelines and business needs to compete against those large publishers as they prove themselves in the market to secure capital for expansion and future games.
Ultimately the market will decade, but my hopes are on the latter.
I think surgical use of it on small indie teams is going to be a game changer going forward.
Those teams will still need to be pushed forward by a strong creative vision, and integrity though. Artistic assets, UI, character models, geometry, gameplay etc, will all need to be carefully curated and developed by human hands, because people can and will sniff out lazy development practices with AI, just as they already have with AAA studios pumping out garbage and cash grabs.
Games are a creative medium, and to be truly successful, developers will still need to be innovative and know their shit.
I don’t like AI currently, since it’s source is centralized and controlled mainly by large corporations with morally dubious intentions like replacing regular working people and tossing them to the curb.
But, I can’t deny that decentralized models going forward will be invaluable tools. Just think about how tedious the process of retopography is in order to optimize animation rigs.
Having an “AI” tool that does this optimally will be helpful for artists and animators to spend more time on things that players will notice, and also result in better optimized games IF developers don’t just use the tool to cut corners.
The whole topic has a lot of nuance, and I honestly understand the angles for and against it
The cat’s out of the bag, can’t put it back in. Now we see how it plays out, but while I listed some reasons for its use, I can’t help but worry that it will just be used to displace actual creatives and just pump out the same shit over and over again.