August 11, 2025
I have been seeing a lot of developers both old and new (especially new) rushing to embrace AI tools to create content for their games and I feel this is foolish at this moment in time. I am by no means a skilled programmer only having been seriously programming since 2014, I have a long way to go before I feel I am "good" and I feel I have just reached the "capable" stage so understand that if you think you know what you're doing after a couple of prompts and a year or two of development under your belt - think again. You are in for a rude awakening. Let's examine two areas of friction, often overlooked, you will have to overcome using AI tools to develop your game.
The first is the customer barrier. Being realistic, it is not lost on me that the customer rarely cares about how a game is made, just that it is good. They do not care if you use crayons, paint or AI to create your game. They do not care if you grew your hair out for years and weaved it into strings to use on your handmade violin to score the soundtrack. They simply care if it is good. But not all of them.
There's a growing group of customers that view AI tools as shortcuts and methods to extract from the populace without compensation. Industry layoffs, skyrocketing profits while AI is being used to create and the human element is being reduced. You will find there are streamers, content creators and pundits who view AI as an evil to artistic work. They are not entirely wrong. Most of the AI models have been trained on data scraped from public and copyrighted works without the author's consent and no compensation given. There is a growing number of Steam Groups and Steam Curators highlighting games made with AI and I use these lists to avoid games made with AI - I'm not alone. While I don't feel that AI is "evil", I do feel using it to replace people is a non-starter. You will be ice-skating uphill if you use AI to create your games. Make no mistake the industry has been on thin ice with customers in how they have been treated and this is further compounded by a growing disgust of AI among the core gaming demographic.
Now think about the quality of AI output. Do you think it's good? I am impressed by its ability to render an image but not much else. The quality of language output, art, music is in the composition and not the final render. We have seen plenty of games pull serious numbers and not look good in the process but what will matter is the quality of the craftsmanship.
I have been seeing a wave of AI produced animations on social media with people praising its abilities and how close it can get to Pixar-like rendering. The catch here is that there's little thought behind any piece of art or movement. Take a character running, for example. An AI might be able to draw a near-Pixar like animation but what goes missing are all the important elements that make a running animation work. Who is the character? What are their motivations? What is the character's thought process? Are they running to or from something? Are they awkward? Are they a chad? There's a million more questions we need to answer to get to what works with that specific character running and the only way we can answer those questions is through EXPERIENCE.
AI does not experience. It cannot. It can only regurgitate a mish-mash of what it has seen and not very well. The human experience is what goes into every frame of animation for that character running. We harness our past as a reference in everything we do - we are a product of it - naturally that will show up in our work. A character's story can be just as important a factor in the run animation as anything else the character may be engaging with in the moment.
What about the camera? The camera is a psychological tool for the director and cinematographer. The framing of a scene can completely change the tone and weight. It can obscure or reveal and once again - the human touch cannot be overstated as an important tool in the filming of this simple running sequence.
So what does this mean for you? Simply put - if you believe that AI tools can create a human-like analogue to your work, you believe that a wasp building a paper hut is on the same level as a human building a skyscraper. Insects are smart, sure, but intelligence is not relative in art. All things being equal a human-made skyscraper is superior to a wasp's nest. If you find yourself or a partner interested in using AI to create and are happy with its output - I seriously question your skill level as a creator and artist. You have not produced anything of value on your own and have no point of reference for what is good vs what is not.
Does that mean you don't use AI? Maybe. It's just not quite there, yet, and may never be. You will be far better off producing what is a technically inferior work so you may learn what is and what isn't valuable as well as learn what it takes to create. There have been plenty of games, films, music and literature that aren't perfect but they are still held in high regards due to their content. This is more valuable than speed and rendering.
I have been doing this 11 years and I am only now becoming capable. This is a feature, not a bug. AI will have you pushing boulders uphill in a battle to win the hearts and minds of the customer and have you fighting phantoms over what is obviously sub-par output, devoid of the human fingerprint. Use it at your own risk.