"AI is Theft, I Have to Use It, Otherwise I'll Get Fired": GDC Reports One-Third of Game Workers Are Using GenAI for Daily Tasks
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If you were to listen to the internet, it would seem that AAA studios are be on their last gasp, with indie devs dancing on their graves.
The reality is that, aside from the big indie game of the moment (think Silksong or Expedition 33, if you want to count the latter as indie), most gamers don't care or don't even know indie games exist in the first place.
I have a few gamer friends (each of whom spends a few hours daily on games), and only one of them plays maybe one indie game per year, and only those who manage to breach through his bubble via influencers and streamers.Ehhh I know a lot of people that play indie games, but generally they only play one or two genres of them. Part of it is that the terminology gets confusing because people mean different things. Like, other than baldur's gate, I couldn't tell you the last western AAA game I played. But I played FF7 rebirth which is definitely AAA but not what people are always talking about when that talk about AAA sinking. There are also tons of studios that you probably wouldn't call AAA but you also wouldn't call indie. Like, I probably play more games from Falcom than any other studio. They're not huge headcount-wise or cutting edge technology-wise but they've been consistently making games since the 80s. I think a lot of people don't bucket those types of developers in their heads at all.
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I could see using AI for tasks that are so mind numbing and mundane it might actually be cruel to make a human do it.
"I need a perfectly tileable concrete wall texture for a video game, make it light gray with random spots of yellow and white paint."
Took about a minute.
But then, if you're going to do THAT, there are already royalty free libraries where it's already done.
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I could see using AI for tasks that are so mind numbing and mundane it might actually be cruel to make a human do it.
"I need a perfectly tileable concrete wall texture for a video game, make it light gray with random spots of yellow and white paint."
Took about a minute.
But then, if you're going to do THAT, there are already royalty free libraries where it's already done.
Nobody did that by hand even before Gen Ai was invented. Even before photography or computers, there were techniques to get textures without manually drawing them. The splotches, for example, could be accomplished by shaking the brush at the canvas.
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I could see using AI for tasks that are so mind numbing and mundane it might actually be cruel to make a human do it.
"I need a perfectly tileable concrete wall texture for a video game, make it light gray with random spots of yellow and white paint."
Took about a minute.
But then, if you're going to do THAT, there are already royalty free libraries where it's already done.
Those sort of things are easy to do with procedural textures. You're example isn't even tileable.
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Those sort of things are easy to do with procedural textures. You're example isn't even tileable.
Well of course not, AI did it in 1 minute.
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Well of course not, AI did it in 1 minute.
You have no point then, AI isn't even able to do something mundane.
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You have no point then, AI isn't even able to do something mundane.
It did get maybe 90% there in a minute which is faster than a person would do it. Not a perfect tile, maybe take a few more interations. But not awful for cobbled together in a minute, and if your job is to come up with 50 or 100 different textures, still better than doing it by hand.
But as I noted, there are also already royalty free libraries for this stuff as well.
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It did get maybe 90% there in a minute which is faster than a person would do it. Not a perfect tile, maybe take a few more interations. But not awful for cobbled together in a minute, and if your job is to come up with 50 or 100 different textures, still better than doing it by hand.
But as I noted, there are also already royalty free libraries for this stuff as well.
I don't think you know anything about texturing. Even if you eventually got to a point where it gave you something usable it's not going to be consistent.
If you're job is to create 100+ textures and you're only able to get 90% of the way there for each variation, you're fucked. You can create infinite variations of a texture with procedural once your initial setup is done. AI couldn't even get a basic bitch texture right how is it going to deal with more complex textures?
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The question is who funds these theoretical new studios? Indie studios more often than not have to make deals with the devil so they can eat. Then, even if their game is a smash hit, the investors take the lion's share of profit and still control the actual devs by the purse strings. This society is sick.
what is going to happen when the prices rocket up and who is going to create the content for future AI?
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Well of course not, AI did it in 1 minute.
...so you're proving yourself wrong?
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...so you're proving yourself wrong?
Not at all wrong, just showing what can be done with virtually zero effort and time.
I could most likely perfect it in a few minutes more, still a fraction of the time of doing it by hand. I'm not extending a proof of concept to win arguments on the Internet.
But as I noted at the bottom of the comment, which apparently nobody bothered to read, there are ALREADY royalty free libraries for this kind of thing. So it also has to be faster than searching libraries that are already there.
Of course that action is it's own time sink as anyone who has gone looking for "the perfect font" can tell you.
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I could see using AI for tasks that are so mind numbing and mundane it might actually be cruel to make a human do it.
"I need a perfectly tileable concrete wall texture for a video game, make it light gray with random spots of yellow and white paint."
Took about a minute.
But then, if you're going to do THAT, there are already royalty free libraries where it's already done.
The problem with your example is there are traditional algorithms that can do that, and better.
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Not at all wrong, just showing what can be done with virtually zero effort and time.
I could most likely perfect it in a few minutes more, still a fraction of the time of doing it by hand. I'm not extending a proof of concept to win arguments on the Internet.
But as I noted at the bottom of the comment, which apparently nobody bothered to read, there are ALREADY royalty free libraries for this kind of thing. So it also has to be faster than searching libraries that are already there.
Of course that action is it's own time sink as anyone who has gone looking for "the perfect font" can tell you.
It's not really a proof of concept if it doesn't even meet the only mildly challenging criteria laid out...
You're getting roasted because you basically did the equivalent of going, "well I asked ChatGPT and it said, [demonstrably wrong answer]".
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If you were to listen to the internet, it would seem that AAA studios are be on their last gasp, with indie devs dancing on their graves.
The reality is that, aside from the big indie game of the moment (think Silksong or Expedition 33, if you want to count the latter as indie), most gamers don't care or don't even know indie games exist in the first place.
I have a few gamer friends (each of whom spends a few hours daily on games), and only one of them plays maybe one indie game per year, and only those who manage to breach through his bubble via influencers and streamers.Indie devs don’t need to reach mainstream mindshare to become successful. An indie team that’s stays small and nimble doesn’t need to reach a million unit in sales. Like how many mainstream gamers have heard of Tiny Glade a game that made a few million dollars created by two people.
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I could see using AI for tasks that are so mind numbing and mundane it might actually be cruel to make a human do it.
"I need a perfectly tileable concrete wall texture for a video game, make it light gray with random spots of yellow and white paint."
Took about a minute.
But then, if you're going to do THAT, there are already royalty free libraries where it's already done.
Someone skilled in Substance Designer can also do that in minutes. And then you have a file that can generate an infinite number of variations that look artistically consistent including normal maps, roughness maps etc.
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Theft of what? The jobs are a legitimate concern though.
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The question is who funds these theoretical new studios? Indie studios more often than not have to make deals with the devil so they can eat. Then, even if their game is a smash hit, the investors take the lion's share of profit and still control the actual devs by the purse strings. This society is sick.
Isn't that already the case though?
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Theft of what? The jobs are a legitimate concern though.
I guess you're living up to your user name.
and
https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/wga-disney-openai-deal-theft-of-our-work-1236606872/
and
But of course when corporations infringe on copyright it's fine right it's not theft at all.
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The problem with your example is there are traditional algorithms that can do that, and better.
They can, but they also don't meet the corporate dictate of "Everyone use AI."
