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Technology@lemmy.worldbyGolfFoxtrotLima@sh.itjust.works
9 days

Indie game developers have a new sales pitch: being ‘AI free’

www.theverge.com English

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39280394

47
    “We can produce results that meet our quality standards without its assistance.”
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    • morto@piefed.socialEnglish
      9 days

      The good old strategy of doing nothing and letting your competition screw themselves

        • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
          9 days

          Well, just like China they’re not doing nothing, they’re just making sure to do none of the dumb thing…

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          9 days

          Posted nine months ago.

            • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              9 days

              Well gestated.

                • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  9 days

                  We could have done it in a month with 8 more posts.

              • RelativePlatypus@piefed.worldEnglish
                9 days

                Just like Mom used to make

                • blackouttripleseven@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                  8 days

                  UNBEATABLE MENTIONED!!!

                  • Stolas@lemmy.caEnglish
                    8 days

                    I figured this would have happened sooner for every industry.

                    People resent AI in every way imaginable. I would not even be shocked to find companies who do use AI to be lying about it like this because it is such good advertisement.

                    • Kaligalis@lemmy.worldEnglish
                      8 days

                      The “handmade” label has been used in marketing before. I saw it far more often a few decades ago than now.

                      • Korkki@lemmy.mlEnglish
                        9 days

                        Gen-AI use is fine if it’s used within good taste and for generating bulk background props and somesuch. It doesn’t make a gamedev any holier or respectable if they torture themselves by hand drawing 1000 unique titles and textures for bookspines for some NPCs bookshelf.

                          • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
                            9 days

                            It kind of does though because they aren’t destroying the environment, depriving people of water and electricity, and directly contributing to fascism to make their game.

                            (If the comment is in good faith then we all know they aren’t using a local AI model run on solar panels for the work)

                              • crandall@lemmy.todayEnglish
                                9 days

                                Not to mention the artistic theft

                                • vinnymac@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                  9 days

                                  I literally know a guy who is working on a game using local LLMs and his house runs 100% on solar panels, so I found this comment very funny.

                                    • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
                                      9 days

                                      Good for him. I hope he’s also boycotting Nvidia, training his own models, and not using the weights provided by the rent seekers.

                                      Lool I’m like half kidding. It’s actually really difficult to not partake in some form of exploitation if you’re using any modern technology, just because of our fucked up world.

                                      He sounds cool though.

                                  • h0tbeef@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                    9 days

                                    Why would I pay them for something they didn’t do?

                                      • Grimy@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                        9 days

                                        I pay for games I enjoy playing personally but you do you.

                                          • Bugamn@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                            9 days

                                            I pay for games instead of pirating because I believe that the people that worked on a game deserve to be compensated for their work. If these people are using generative AI that was trained with images obtained without the consent of the creators (and right now it’s very unlikely they are using ethically-trained generators), they are not paying the artists that helped create their images. Why should I pay for the game then?

                                              • BJW@lemmus.orgEnglish
                                                8 days

                                                Yes, because the AI generated the game in a bubble, with no direction by a person. It’s just constantly spitting out games of its own volition with no input from people.

                                                /s

                                                  • Bugamn@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                                    8 days

                                                    You misread what I said. If a game creator is using an LLM that was trained with art obtained without consent, that is, the artists were not compensated for that use, why should I compensate that game creator? They don’t value the works of others, so I won’t value theirs either

                                                      • BJW@lemmus.orgEnglish
                                                        8 days

                                                        No artist’s work is being directly used. It’s like arguing that artists owe Disney or Studio Ghibli money if they learned from watching their animations.

                                                          • Bugamn@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                                            8 days

                                                            But the artist was supposed to pay in some form to watch these animations because they are not in the public domain

                                                            • athatet@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                                              8 days

                                                              Right, instead ALL artists work are being directly used to train the models. And no, it’s not like if another human person took inspiration from those artists.

                                                      • h0tbeef@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                                        9 days

                                                        Do you work for Anthropic or something? Lmao

                                                        I’m sure I would enjoy playing GTA6, I really want to play it, but I’ll be abstaining because of Rockstar’s union busting bullshit, the exorbitant price, and the fact that you don’t even get a real physical game for the insane amount they’re asking.

                                                        As far as I know they didn’t use any AI, but that’s not the point.

                                                        The point is that some things are more important than a game, regardless of how enjoyable it might be. Things like class solidarity, artistic integrity, and other elements of real life.

                                                    • Chloé 🥕@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                                                      9 days

                                                      meanwhile, asset packs:

                                                      also, the problem you describe is part of the reason why hyper realistic games are a problem and expecting all games to fit that mold is bad. your bookshelf is a background detail, it’s fine if all books are just flat colors. using ai for this is the worst of both worlds: it looks unimpressive (half the reason people like hyper realism in games is that they can go “whoa look at all the effort they put in!”), and it takes a massive amount of space on people’s hard drives for no reason!

                                                      • Elgenzay@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                                        9 days

                                                        With how controversial genAI is, you may as well stick with the free asset store for that stuff

                                                        • DigDoug@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                                          9 days

                                                          …so it’s okay if they steal that work from others who did?

                                                          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                                            9 days

                                                            Gen-AI use is fine

                                                            It’s really not. There’s already enough procedurally generated GACHA crap. Plus the games that are barely more than T&A Simulator. Hooking this up to the AI pipeline and blasting it into Steam or some similar digital games marketplace is bordering on an act of violence.

                                                            It doesn’t make a gamedev any holier or respectable if they torture themselves by hand drawing 1000 unique titles and textures for bookspines for some NPCs bookshelf.

                                                            I mean, this is what really separates the Men from the Boys when it comes to game development. You come at this thinking “Aha, what kind of dumbshit would have 1000 unique ideas for tiles and textures? How could that possible add to a player’s experience?” And yet this is exactly what makes a FromSoft game or a Hideo Kojima title or a top tier FF title or old school Blizzard or Bioware or Ubisoft or Nintendo game stand out from the pack.

                                                            The loving attention to detail. The craftsmanship and creativity and invention, when translating an idea into a digital asset. The fact that it isn’t just a reskinned cracker box CTRL+C, CTRL+V’d a thousand times across a janky looking brick wall.

                                                            You begin to see a game’s age and lack of care when an expansion comes out and people are saying “X is just a reskin of Y” in the reviews. You see its strength when you’re on your 100th hour of Eldin Ring or your eighth Resident Evil game, in a location you’ve never been getting blindsided by a creature you’ve never seen before.

                                                              • mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
                                                                9 days

                                                                And just to extend, this doesn’t just apply to AAA games or anything. Like look how much people fell in love with and lovingly memed the placeholder art in “Slay the Spire II”. Or how much players are still captivated by the story and feel of “What Remains of Edith Finch”.

                                                                There’s plenty of examples of solo devs doing it too, just not as shiny. “Balatro”, “Axiom Verge”, “Return of the Obra Dinn”, “Stardew Valley”… I could go on. People like lovingly crafted things of any size

                                                              • Emily@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                                                                9 days

                                                                What happened to CC0 assets?? Any problem “”“solved”“” by generative AI already had solutions before.

                                                                  • Korkki@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                                                    8 days

                                                                    What if you need or want something custom that doesn’t come from an assetpack or store? Humanity also had solutions for digging holes before excavators came around. “Right tool for the job” is a concept.

                                                                      • Emily@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                                                                        8 days

                                                                        Well you just shot your argument in the balls because your original comment talked about “bulk background props and somesuch”, not in-universe unique/important objects that will obviously require custom-made assets from scratch.

                                                                        And if anything, I’d rather play mindless generic asset flip games than play a single game with AI-generated assets and possibly code as well.

                                                                          • Korkki@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                                                            8 days

                                                                            “Things you just made up”

                                                                            There is no arguing with you people on this issue. AI is just bad and useless on any and all fronts and use cases. and I hate humanity and art apparently.

                                                                      • altkey (he\him)@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                                                                        9 days

                                                                        Counterpoint: procedural generation in computer games existed at least since Rogue (1980) and is accepted as a well defined way to efficiently make randomized assets and asset combinations via set rules. It aces the tasks with trivial variation like said bookspines, but can go as complex as you set it up. Not everything can be supplemented by proc gen, but it’s usually the answer when you have troubles with quantity of pieces as a priority rather than quality/uniqueness of individual ones. Examples range from Borderlands guns constructor set and Diablo maps, to Minecraft-alike sandbox worlds, to overcomplicated life sims like Dwarf Fortress where multiple systems of algorhytms shape every playthrough in a different way while also reacting to player’s input.

                                                                        Building such systems needs planning and thinking, but it is a potentionally endless source of intentionally designed stuff, that returns a piece on command.

                                                                        GenAI though is unpredictable, unintentional and, as long as you don’t build it into the game itself, consists of fixed resources you bake in.

                                                                        The niche it primarily threatens is not background props, but high effort pieces like visual novel scenes, loading screens art, character’s likeness, strings of dialogs and lore books that couldn’t be proc gened and are created piece by piece by an artist. Making LLM create bookspines is a waste of tokens, and a waste of hard drive space too to pregen them all, it only makes sense if used in place of unique assets. And, these are the things most would prefer handcrafted for they form the face of the game more than anything else.

                                                                          • nightlily@leminal.spaceEnglish
                                                                            8 days

                                                                            Also the background props that can’t be generated with procgen techniques due to their complexity, are generally used as training exercises for juniors. Taking them away doesn’t give juniors different work, it takes away juniors completely.

                                                                          • sudoMakeUser@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                                                                            9 days

                                                                            You are correct but Lemmy doesn’t like anything that’s not “AI bad”

                                                                              • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                                                                9 days

                                                                                You are both incorrect and you should reflect on why that makes you a bad person.

                                                                                • Korkki@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                                                                  9 days

                                                                                  Seems so. Nothing I can say rn for my defense, for I am guilty for breaking the circlejerk.

                                                                                    • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
                                                                                      9 days

                                                                                      You’re not guilty, you’ve just come across honest disagreement. Not everyone who disagrees with you is part of a “circlejerk”

                                                                                        • chunes@lemmy.worldEnglish
                                                                                          9 days

                                                                                          No, lemmy is definitely a circlejerk. There’s no room for nuance whatsoever.

                                                                                            • explodicle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                                                                                              8 days

                                                                                              If we apply nuance to that reasoning, then Lemmy has some circle jerking and some nuance.

                                                                                              • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
                                                                                                9 days

                                                                                                I’m nuanced and I’m on lemmy. Try me

                                                                                            • pogmommy@lemmy.mlEnglish
                                                                                              9 days

                                                                                              Cop-out for not having a defense

                                                                                                • BJW@lemmus.orgEnglish
                                                                                                  8 days

                                                                                                  Defenses get downvotes. Ask me how I know.

                                                                                                    • athatet@lemmy.zipEnglish
                                                                                                      8 days

                                                                                                      Who gives a shit about fake internet points? Especially on lemmy. Complaining about downvotes is probably getting you more than anything ai related.

                                                                                                        • BJW@lemmus.orgEnglish
                                                                                                          6 days

                                                                                                          A downvote implies your contribution has no merit - why bother offering something that others will not value? It’s pretty simple.

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