At $70-100 for a "triple A" title, every pixel and line of code had better be personally massaged by developer. There are plenty of one-man-band operations out there making phenomenal games, for less, without needing to generate anything.
Is including AI actually bad for most games? It feels like there’s a lot of online protest around “AI slop,” but I’m not convinced that gamers as a whole care nearly as much.
I work in the industry, and there’s a palpable negative sentiment toward AI tools.
But as someone who also plays a lot of games, my experience is that most people I play with don’t really care whether a game used AI or not, as long as the game is good.
This feels less like a mass-market gamer backlash and more like an online discourse issue. The broader audience seems primarily interested in playing good games, not in how the sausage was made.
I don't think gamers care. Not as industry or media does at least.
They do care if it detracts from the experience. Or it seems that they are being cheated with perceived value. So if they notice that premium game is filled with slop or feel like it is missing some of the soul they do care. But as long as it feels like sufficient quality they won't care.
In the end criteria I would set is if the use of AI distracts them from game too much. But this goes as well to low quality human made aspects. So anything too sloppy or lazy will get some ire.
Gamers can be.... sensitive. When you launch a game and see front and center in the main menu a lootbox promo featuring characters with too many fingers and hallucinated noise backgrounds, it's insulting. Not only does the developer think they deserve your money, it's not worth a human's time to ask for it. They throw a turd with a dollar sign on your screen and expect you to give them money.
That’s my impression as well. Taste matters more than tools. If something is sloppy, it doesn’t really matter whether AI was involved or not. AI just makes it easier for people without taste to produce sloppy work at scale.
When a game is good, the tools used to make it barely matter.
I honestly think the backlash against AI (presciently seen in gaming) is mostly just a matter of collective posturing needing a target -- with a minority of actual grievances drowned out by the crowd.
That's the only way you get a world where a universally praised game like Expedition 33 gets awards revoked because someone found out they used AI.
There is an ethical side of generative ai that looks a lot like bulk plagiarism. Some folks push back when it seems like you charge a bunch of money for a game but didn't put in a bunch of effort and even stole some of it.
At $70-100 for a "triple A" title, every pixel and line of code had better be personally massaged by developer. There are plenty of one-man-band operations out there making phenomenal games, for less, without needing to generate anything.
Is including AI actually bad for most games? It feels like there’s a lot of online protest around “AI slop,” but I’m not convinced that gamers as a whole care nearly as much.
I work in the industry, and there’s a palpable negative sentiment toward AI tools.
But as someone who also plays a lot of games, my experience is that most people I play with don’t really care whether a game used AI or not, as long as the game is good.
This feels less like a mass-market gamer backlash and more like an online discourse issue. The broader audience seems primarily interested in playing good games, not in how the sausage was made.
I don't think gamers care. Not as industry or media does at least.
They do care if it detracts from the experience. Or it seems that they are being cheated with perceived value. So if they notice that premium game is filled with slop or feel like it is missing some of the soul they do care. But as long as it feels like sufficient quality they won't care.
In the end criteria I would set is if the use of AI distracts them from game too much. But this goes as well to low quality human made aspects. So anything too sloppy or lazy will get some ire.
Gamers can be.... sensitive. When you launch a game and see front and center in the main menu a lootbox promo featuring characters with too many fingers and hallucinated noise backgrounds, it's insulting. Not only does the developer think they deserve your money, it's not worth a human's time to ask for it. They throw a turd with a dollar sign on your screen and expect you to give them money.
That’s my impression as well. Taste matters more than tools. If something is sloppy, it doesn’t really matter whether AI was involved or not. AI just makes it easier for people without taste to produce sloppy work at scale.
When a game is good, the tools used to make it barely matter.
Reminds me of the PG essay on wokeness [1]
I honestly think the backlash against AI (presciently seen in gaming) is mostly just a matter of collective posturing needing a target -- with a minority of actual grievances drowned out by the crowd.
That's the only way you get a world where a universally praised game like Expedition 33 gets awards revoked because someone found out they used AI.
[1] https://paulgraham.com/woke.html
There is an ethical side of generative ai that looks a lot like bulk plagiarism. Some folks push back when it seems like you charge a bunch of money for a game but didn't put in a bunch of effort and even stole some of it.