Damn guess they shoulda paid artists huh
in my experience, a lot of the game devs using AI would normally try to do the art themselves, but think AI is “better” than what they could do… Then they throw together a collage of mismatched art that has no cohesion and call it a day, and get upset when they get called out for it, thinking it’s just some anti AI thing.
People love to take shortcuts then hate when people tell them they sacrificed quality to do it.
Im an artist working in games, and I absolutely agree. Lots of people think art in games needs to be “good” without knowing what that actually means. It’s a lot more important that your art is coherent. Having coherent shapes and colors can do a lot. For example, just by choosing a color palette alone, you can create art that works pretty well.
Setting up any limitation will automatically create the coherence for a project. And you can go pretty minimalistic, too. Don’t understand colors and light? Go black and white or sepia. Don’t know about shapes? Use only one or two and design anything around it.
One problem with AI is that it doesn’t use limitation as a tool and isn’t able to contain detail. An indie developer who is inexperienced in art and able to manage their expectations doesn’t have this problem. They can create naturally game art because they only know one way to approach it.
Or they use it to generate placeholder art “so they can get an an ideal on the final product while they’re working on gameplay”.
Super Mario 64’s jumps were figured out with a cube bouncing around in an infinite plane. Their excuse is pure bs, good gameplay is good gameplay
Even if AI could perfectly produce art for a video game - it would lack a lot of what makes indie games charming.
Part of that discovery process is so valuable to the charm. “I don’t know how to do art! The fuck is this shit! How do I 3d model? I guess that works, it’ll do. Hey actually it’d be kinda cool if I based the general aesthetic of the game around this kinda look.” Boom, unique art emerging from their constraints. They had to work to get there, but their work is infinitely more artful as a result
As a gamer (and an artist in my spare time) I don’t think this is true. I’ve played and loved lots of charming games, but I almost never think about the process as an element of that charm. The charm is in the details of the final product - and a perfect simulation from an AI would (by definition, if it existed) perfectly produce those details.
To be clear, I’m not saying the process is the charm. I’m saying the process leads to a product that is charming, as a result of having had restrictions.
An AI that could perfectly produce what the dev desires would not lead to this innovation from constraints.
I love how easily the billionaire sloplords adopt language implying that they are oppressed.
Maybe we should start doing just that
Good idea. I’ll tell my special interest magazine to make me more sympathetic.
Billionaires get their branding from CumHammer Brand Management:
Wealthy
Handsome
Fun-loving
Victim
deleted by creator
Could it just be AI itself and how bad it sucks instead of “AI stigma”?
Yep. I’ve seen indie game devs try to push AI art into their products and it never looks good. There is no cohesive design. It looks like badly done collage work with images in different resolutions sometimes. And if they’re that lazy, it usually shows in more ways.
“Data Analyst Finds that ‘Lazy Awful Game Stigma’ Can Reduce the Number of Reviews a Game Gets by 53% - And the Reviews it Does Get are More Negative”
Insert Seymour Skinner meme about the kids being wrong
I think the way you phrased it misses the point. It simply does not matter whether AI “art” is good or bad, in a technical sense.
Until AI is an actual person, and can make art reflecting its subjective experience (which would no doubt be very interesting) ; AI “art” is just nothing.
There is no meaning, no story behind it, no other mind to connect with. It was made by a philosophical zombie, a thing that possesses enough appearance of consciousness to seem aware, but no actual subjectivity.
AI “art” could be technically irreproachable, ie “good” and it would still be equivalent to nothing. Even a blank canvas made by a human means worlds more than our current AI could ever make.
And I personally don’t believe AI will ever be a person. But on that, sensible minds may differ.
“Data analyst finds that “diarrhea stigma” in bakeries can reduce the number of reviews a cake gets by around 53%–and the reviews it does get are more negative.”
Stop putting diarrhea in the cake and people will both review them more often and review them more highly.
Ah yes, the stigma against AI, the stigma that is actually pretty well founded given how it’s dogshit at anything other than BS-ing. The stigma that’s an obvious reaction to shoe horning a hype fueled scam into every fucking thinkable thing. That stigma?
I’m sure it has nothing to do with AI games being bad.
You say stigma I say quality control issues.
When Valve updated the policy for games published on Steam to include disclosure of Ai usage in the games, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney responded in the public that this should not be done and just hurts the industry. It would generate unneeded backslash, as everyone will use Ai in development, according to Tim. Fast forward to today, turns out Epic plans on integrating Ai tools into Unreal Engine 5.
You will not find a game engine without some AI tool. Same way as majority of devs will use AI in some capacity.
People only care about AI when presented with it. If non of these games had AI generated visual elements, people would be non the wiser.
You will not find a game engine without some AI tool.
I don’t know where you getting this and spreading misinformation. I think Unreal Engine didn’t have any Ai integration in its entire history. And I’m sure there are game engines without Ai tools integrated by default. I think the Open Source engine Godot in example does not have any of that. If I’m wrong, then please enlighten me. I mean seriously, I want to know if the engine includes Ai tools by default, because I care about.
People only care about AI when presented with it.
So they care about then? Whats really bad is, if companies or developers hide the usage of Ai and only admit using it after they got caught. There are many problems with Ai why people care about this subject. And it should be an informed decision of the buyer, if Ai is used or not or to what extend and what type of Ai. Generating art is not the same as autocompletion of words when programming in example. Using Ai to replace voice actors is also not something we want to see. Ai is trained unethically on data without permission.
If non of these games had AI generated visual elements, people would be non the wiser.
I don’t understand this statement.
who otherwise would have succeeded
Buddy is in his own little assumption fantasy world
Yes, because gamers are ever so slightly more tech savvy than your average project manager. They are fully aware that LLMs and diffusion models are just expensive plagiarism engines at best and slop factories the rest of the time.
its a stigma now? and not hesitency?, i dont people see it as a taboo. its obnoxious, a plague and polluting to the environment, plus its being weaponized.
weaponized
I want to be clear to the audience that you are not speaking metaphorically.
Maybe because people don’t want their art automated?
“I filled my game with something people find objectionable and people don’t like it”
wow amazing
Games are ultimately about telling a story, through literal plot narrative or metaphor. I like it when people tell stories. I don’t want to be told a story by a damned machine.
Games are ultimately about enjoying something. There’s lots of games people play that don’t have a story. Or a good one.
Don’t nitpick.
I understand what you are saying but I don’t think trippe a games let AI write the story. I think its like software engineering, where the human still thinks about and decides about the architecture but let’s the AI produce the actual code. I feel like its a pretty difficult dilemma. Idk if I would care that an npc dialogue is generated or written. As long as the story and the world is handcrafted and these details as a npc you might not even interact with match that storry I think I don’t really care? I think its simpler to picture with game assets: I don’t care if a sprite for a puff of smoke is AI generated. I would care though if the characters are generated and not hand painted/textured
It’s a slippery slope. We have to object to ALL AI usage to ensure it doesn’t get to that point.
Yeah sure the best games (played for more than 100 years) are about stories: football, basketball, chess, backgammon all about telling a story.
I said metaphorically telling a story. Chess is literally a battlefield, but even physical sports focus on certain categories of human movement and form. They encourage certain body types. They require certain movements. Body language is a form of communication. The shape of your body tells stories of your ancestors and the story of what you’ve done and how you’ve treated it. There is poetry in body langue. It can tell a story. There are many kinds of stories. Not all of them are narrative. Some are metaphor. Every sport has its own vibe to it. Every game has its own feel. A video game is the creation of a human being(s). Another human being wants you to share an experience, whether game mechanic or literal plot narrative. Even a game with no plot at all still has heart, still has a soul. It represents another human being’s expression of what they believe to be fun, enjoyable, and wondrous.
That is a deeply human form of communication. Even if it is entirely nonverbal. Every game played and loved represents the opening of one human heart unto another. And I find it morally reprehensible to be tricked into having that kind of experience with a machine.
I feel the same for most all creative arts.
Good
