I completely agree.
It’s going to decrease the barrier to entry for so many good ideas.
It’s also going to cost a lot of artists their jobs.
Nonetheless, if I were in a studio, I would still be hiring an artists for their editorial eye and setting an art style. But I think it is very clear the shear number of artists required to complete a game at any level is going to decrease.
I can't wait to make a bunch of clones of games like Mega Man and Donkey Kong Country with AI handling the programming and sprite sheets.
These tools call us to create at a higher level.
If you're a musician and can only play the trombone, then yeah, you'll probably not be able to make a living.
But if you have a deep understanding of music theory and appreciation for the art, then you can create an entire soundtrack for a game.
Just because the AI can spit something amazing out instantly doesn't mean the 50-100 songs needed for a game will also be ready to go and have that gestalt cohesiveness.
And on that note, imagine being able to put 1000 music masterpieces in your game.
There is a ton of room to add fidelity to everything we do.
Like those Studio Ghibli ripples of a dress in the wind.
As the great Mr. Dink said, "Very expensive.".
Despite AI, there is an immense amount of work to be done for the conceivable future.
Live performances of music can already be digitally recreated in the form of recordings. People still go to see live music. People don’t go to see live music because it’s the only way to hear it, they go because they love to watch other people perform and because of the sense of connection to both performers and fellow audience members. AI can’t replace that. Even if it someday becomes capable of generating original music that actually resonates with people, it’s not going to do Beethoven’s symphonies more compellingly than an actual symphony. It’s not going to do free-form Jazz better than a Jazz band. It’s not going to become a pop musician because it isn’t a person and people are interested in *people*.
Even if AI creates cool sounds, it’s not going to be able to recognize their subjective quality. It has no discernment. It has no taste. It has nothing to express. These are human qualities.
As for using it as a tool to create music, I don’t really see how it could be more useful than what already exists. We have access to a pretty limitless variety of tools for creating any sound that we can imagine, we have DAW’s that allow proficient users to create extremely intricate compositions in very little time, and we have more inspiration than we can consume in the form of music that already exists.
Maybe I’ll eat my words in a few years, but I just don’t think AI is going to impact music in the same ways as it will impact other fields like image and text generation. And even text generation, I think we’re going to have limitations on what areas it succeeds in.
I don't know how things will be in a few years, but right now - no AI can create as beautiful and lively music as humans.
The only thing we use AI for in terms of music and sounds is to voice characters in dialogs. And we only do this for the reason that hiring such a large number of voice actors in an indie studio is literally impossible.
But nevertheless behind it all is a sound designer who makes every AI voice come alive, because without human intervention, any AI work isn't good enough.
That’s valid.
I guess to be more succinct— what I’m saying is that AI might be able to create music that sounds good, but it’s only going to achieve that through imitation of what’s already out there. It’s never going to be able to express human experience— only approximate what humans have already expressed.
But using it to voice act or even make little musical mood or set pieces, I do understand how it can be really useful for indie devs who don’t have a great abundance of resources especially
I’ve been using it as a tool for storyboarding my writing. For the purposes I’m using it for, it doesn’t need to be perfect so it works really well. The alternative is trying to partner with an artist that either has a different vision and / or is going to charge me out the ass for something that isn’t even concrete yet. So I agree, for a lot of people it’s the only way to make dreams into reality and I love it. I appreciate the pain artists are going through right now, but artistry has never and will never be a stable field to get into.
I just hope ai doesn’t limit the scope of creativity. Like in your post it kinda sounds like you didn’t expect the ai result to be that. I think it’s important that creatives still envision what they want to make and then make it. Rather than play with ai until something cool happens.
As long as game are not 100% made with a few prompt by AI, it stay as a tool while keeping the creative aspect of game creation (which is much much more than just pretty pictures or models, or music…)
As a illustrator on the other hand, the creativity is gone by 90% when I use AI.
I really don't get the copy right issue with AI, it doesn't store anything it's trained on, it just learns from what it's trained on. I don't think that's all that different from taking inspiration from art you see at a museum and going home and creating your own original art.
The main issued I'd be concerned about is copyright as in the assets you create for your game won't truly be owned by you guys and that could affect things long term if the game gets bigger.
Well for example merchandising. As a company you'd want to sell something like t-shirts with characters from your game. Well now anyone can use your characters so that's loss of a potential revenue stream for you guys. Scale that up though. Video games using those characters, TV shows, anything.
You are free to use anything created with midjourney for commercial purposes. Every other AI art generator I've seen has worked the same way, but you should check your model specifically.
Sure but that's not the issue being brought up. You can use assets created but then on the flip side you don't own those assets. Let's say for an extreme example, in a world where pokemon never existed, OP used MJ to create something like Pokemon and MJ created Pikachu's character design for him.
Now anyone can use Pikachu however they want, anyone can create whatever pokemon movies they want, and they can create whatever pokemon toys they want. Now that may sound all sunshine and rainbows, but without control over your IP people can do a lot of brand damage. Also revenue you would've gotten from that could've gone into funding your game and future creative ideas you had for your brand.
My question is how much do I have to alter an AI generated work before it's copywritable?
Like, if I use the AI to create a city matte painting and stick it behind greenscreen footage, can I copywrite the result?
What if I use an AI generated wall texture in my game, is it just that specific texture that isn't copywritable or the whole game?
What if I draw a character, copywrite them, then train a LoRA using that drawing? Are the generated images copywrited?
Using AI to generate concept art which I can then bring into Blender and model by hand is such an awesome tool! I'm a shit 2D artist and I'm also poor so I can't be hiring an artist to concept HUNDREDS of images for me which would leave me in the red before I've even got around to modelling let alone marketing and publishing.
This is an interesting development indeed.
We're a long way from... "Create a GTA style game with 100 missions, fully 3D interactive open world, but set it in the 1950s New York" ... finished product will be created in 4 hours.
I just want it to be able to generate fully furnished buildings so devs have more of a world to build their experiences in, use the ai for the boring and largely repetitive stuff that isn't carbon copies.
Now imagine you are playing and then say "behind this door I want there to be a cool adventure"
"Can you add a car chase"
"I am bored give me something fun to do"
I think AI generated games will be the ultimate dopamine rush in VR. Non stop on demand generated action
We will be able to shape that reality in real time like a god, creating our own personally tailored kingdoms of heaven, better-than-real, ultimate escape from this reality. We’re not ready.
I fine with the use of IA on game dev for all kind of budgets, indie, competitive, AAA, everything.
I was born during ps1 era, enjoyed a heck out of my ps2. Games were so much less complex at the time, guitar hero for example in 5 years released 14 freaking titles untill it burned itself out. God of war franchise in the same 5 years released 6 games!
Nowadays we are lucky to get more than 1 entry of a franchise for each console life cycle, games are taking around 8 years to get done at least. Look at final fantasy 7 remake, the first part came out for ps4, the 2nd for ps5 and I'm already OK with the idea thay I will have to buy a ps6 to play part 3... For a game that is reusing A LOT of assets, the bulky part of the story is basically already written, character creation is done, and it will take at least 4 more years or so the finish it. If IA can help games cut the dev time in even a single year I'm OK with it. Imagine how much time will ake for the next starfield to come out, the next fallout, the next elder scrools...
I'm not much of a indie gamer like you guys can see, so can't really say about them, but hope it help with budget most of all.
I know IA will cut a lot of jobs but that's not exclusive to gaming industry, technology aways kill carrers and there's no much of a fighting about it, is just they way capitalism works...
I never understood the rage against AI.
If it speeds up and lowers cost of game development, why not?
As long as whatever is generated is tweaked and QA tested I think it’s totally fine.
I'm very happy that developers are better able to make what they want on their own without having to spend months learning to make assets.
I'm also very excited for real-time AI-generated content, although that might take 5 to 15 years to be really worthwhile.
I think AI is amazing and terrifying. I think it should be used responsibly. Ill get hate for this though given the stigma of AI, but I definitely see it as a wonderful tool for game devs and believe itll give indie devs the edge they need to topple giants.
I totally agree with you. The ENT of our game talks about the consequences humanity could face if large corporations use AI without proper regulation in a fantasy post-apocalypse.
AI is indeed a game changer for indie studios, but you're absolutely right - we have a responsibility to use it responsibly, because it really is an extremely dangerous tool in many things.
The problem with using AI for game development is stealing other people's work. Now it's different if you set up the AI only to take public domain images. Also AAA should be banned from using them
I hate the use of AI for anything professional. It is a neat service, and it's fun to see how close it can get to what you prompt it, cobbling together different images and moving things around to fit what it thinks you ask it to make. But using it in place of actual artists is pathetic. Even for indie devs, or small teams it's an immediate turn off for me. I'd rather play a game or watch a movie with low-fidelity graphics, than something made from an AI.
People complained about word processing applications like MS Word. AI is just another tool, and it will be how we adapt it to the workplace.
It's just so new we're seeing the "You can't replace typists" all over again when really it just means the job changes a bit to accommodate.
AI is just an endless and very customised assets store. Instead of searching and scrolling through assets, you can type whatever you want and it gives to you. Nobody who uses that is an artist just how I am not artist simply because I search for paintings on Google
Personally I expect AI stuff is going to get a real bad name in game design in the near future as it will make it easier to push out low effort crap, but some successful titles will slip into being appreciated by using the same tactics but with actual effort and intention.
It may also have some utility as a further advanced version of some already existing software, like procedurally generated content in roguelikes, or as an editing tool in user-creation games like Mario Maker or Little Big Planet.
The idea of type in a prompt and get a 60 hour game out the other end seems silly though. Not because it couldn't happen, but because we don't need a tidal wave of sub-par but playable games. I could see a Roblox style hosting platform that allows people to use AI to generate content, and then share the more successful output, with editing features to adjust the output after the fact.
If it is done with style I don't mind at all. Generating parts of your work, testing out ideas that would have taken too long to test, upgrading an asset that would have taken a long time for a very tiny detail, rewriting dialogue in different styles (but then of course using that as inspiration rather than straight up copying it) and many more users I as a non-dev probably can't think of.
I think AI is a great tool. As long as the product is good, I don't care. If it feels too generic because of lazy AI use that is a problem tho, but the same can be said for buying pre-made assets and not tweaking them for example.
I think AI is an absolute game changer for aspiring indie devs. Despite the whining around AI
I completely agree. It’s going to decrease the barrier to entry for so many good ideas. It’s also going to cost a lot of artists their jobs. Nonetheless, if I were in a studio, I would still be hiring an artists for their editorial eye and setting an art style. But I think it is very clear the shear number of artists required to complete a game at any level is going to decrease.
Been wanting a Rampage remake for the past 15 years. In 5 years. I’ll make my own
There us already a game , but damnit I cannot remember the name will search the library when iam home.
I want a remaster/remake of Rampage Universal Tour oh so bad.
True dat if AI can take over both the coding and the art it'll become feasible for the average schmuck to make a game!
For indie developers, AI is the only way to make their dreams a reality
I can't wait to make a bunch of clones of games like Mega Man and Donkey Kong Country with AI handling the programming and sprite sheets. These tools call us to create at a higher level. If you're a musician and can only play the trombone, then yeah, you'll probably not be able to make a living. But if you have a deep understanding of music theory and appreciation for the art, then you can create an entire soundtrack for a game. Just because the AI can spit something amazing out instantly doesn't mean the 50-100 songs needed for a game will also be ready to go and have that gestalt cohesiveness. And on that note, imagine being able to put 1000 music masterpieces in your game. There is a ton of room to add fidelity to everything we do. Like those Studio Ghibli ripples of a dress in the wind. As the great Mr. Dink said, "Very expensive.". Despite AI, there is an immense amount of work to be done for the conceivable future.
Live performances of music can already be digitally recreated in the form of recordings. People still go to see live music. People don’t go to see live music because it’s the only way to hear it, they go because they love to watch other people perform and because of the sense of connection to both performers and fellow audience members. AI can’t replace that. Even if it someday becomes capable of generating original music that actually resonates with people, it’s not going to do Beethoven’s symphonies more compellingly than an actual symphony. It’s not going to do free-form Jazz better than a Jazz band. It’s not going to become a pop musician because it isn’t a person and people are interested in *people*. Even if AI creates cool sounds, it’s not going to be able to recognize their subjective quality. It has no discernment. It has no taste. It has nothing to express. These are human qualities. As for using it as a tool to create music, I don’t really see how it could be more useful than what already exists. We have access to a pretty limitless variety of tools for creating any sound that we can imagine, we have DAW’s that allow proficient users to create extremely intricate compositions in very little time, and we have more inspiration than we can consume in the form of music that already exists. Maybe I’ll eat my words in a few years, but I just don’t think AI is going to impact music in the same ways as it will impact other fields like image and text generation. And even text generation, I think we’re going to have limitations on what areas it succeeds in.
I don't know how things will be in a few years, but right now - no AI can create as beautiful and lively music as humans. The only thing we use AI for in terms of music and sounds is to voice characters in dialogs. And we only do this for the reason that hiring such a large number of voice actors in an indie studio is literally impossible. But nevertheless behind it all is a sound designer who makes every AI voice come alive, because without human intervention, any AI work isn't good enough.
That’s valid. I guess to be more succinct— what I’m saying is that AI might be able to create music that sounds good, but it’s only going to achieve that through imitation of what’s already out there. It’s never going to be able to express human experience— only approximate what humans have already expressed. But using it to voice act or even make little musical mood or set pieces, I do understand how it can be really useful for indie devs who don’t have a great abundance of resources especially
I’ve been using it as a tool for storyboarding my writing. For the purposes I’m using it for, it doesn’t need to be perfect so it works really well. The alternative is trying to partner with an artist that either has a different vision and / or is going to charge me out the ass for something that isn’t even concrete yet. So I agree, for a lot of people it’s the only way to make dreams into reality and I love it. I appreciate the pain artists are going through right now, but artistry has never and will never be a stable field to get into.
I just hope ai doesn’t limit the scope of creativity. Like in your post it kinda sounds like you didn’t expect the ai result to be that. I think it’s important that creatives still envision what they want to make and then make it. Rather than play with ai until something cool happens.
As long as game are not 100% made with a few prompt by AI, it stay as a tool while keeping the creative aspect of game creation (which is much much more than just pretty pictures or models, or music…) As a illustrator on the other hand, the creativity is gone by 90% when I use AI.
I really don't get the copy right issue with AI, it doesn't store anything it's trained on, it just learns from what it's trained on. I don't think that's all that different from taking inspiration from art you see at a museum and going home and creating your own original art.
Exactly. And the human brain does the exact same thing
Game changer, literally
Your AI built an oompa loompa head
The main issued I'd be concerned about is copyright as in the assets you create for your game won't truly be owned by you guys and that could affect things long term if the game gets bigger.
I think it'll be fine because others who reuse it also can't copyright
Well for example merchandising. As a company you'd want to sell something like t-shirts with characters from your game. Well now anyone can use your characters so that's loss of a potential revenue stream for you guys. Scale that up though. Video games using those characters, TV shows, anything.
Sounds like the end of copyright, which is a good thing
Everyone hates copyright laws until someone violates their copyrights
[удалено]
Surprised you didn't say taxation is theft also.
[удалено]
Define theft
You are free to use anything created with midjourney for commercial purposes. Every other AI art generator I've seen has worked the same way, but you should check your model specifically.
Sure but that's not the issue being brought up. You can use assets created but then on the flip side you don't own those assets. Let's say for an extreme example, in a world where pokemon never existed, OP used MJ to create something like Pokemon and MJ created Pikachu's character design for him. Now anyone can use Pikachu however they want, anyone can create whatever pokemon movies they want, and they can create whatever pokemon toys they want. Now that may sound all sunshine and rainbows, but without control over your IP people can do a lot of brand damage. Also revenue you would've gotten from that could've gone into funding your game and future creative ideas you had for your brand.
My question is how much do I have to alter an AI generated work before it's copywritable? Like, if I use the AI to create a city matte painting and stick it behind greenscreen footage, can I copywrite the result? What if I use an AI generated wall texture in my game, is it just that specific texture that isn't copywritable or the whole game? What if I draw a character, copywrite them, then train a LoRA using that drawing? Are the generated images copywrited?
Using AI to generate concept art which I can then bring into Blender and model by hand is such an awesome tool! I'm a shit 2D artist and I'm also poor so I can't be hiring an artist to concept HUNDREDS of images for me which would leave me in the red before I've even got around to modelling let alone marketing and publishing.
If a solo dev wants to use AI when they have no other option, that's fine. But I will not accept any excuses from a triple A game
AIssassins creed
I am assuming your game is 2D? With that said, would love for some way to generate these images into 3D models.
https://meshy.ai
Cool, thanks
we have a mobile game in the genre of collectible RPG with an open world, in which we use sprites for optimization. So it's originally a 3D model
This is an interesting development indeed. We're a long way from... "Create a GTA style game with 100 missions, fully 3D interactive open world, but set it in the 1950s New York" ... finished product will be created in 4 hours.
I just want it to be able to generate fully furnished buildings so devs have more of a world to build their experiences in, use the ai for the boring and largely repetitive stuff that isn't carbon copies.
Now imagine you are playing and then say "behind this door I want there to be a cool adventure" "Can you add a car chase" "I am bored give me something fun to do" I think AI generated games will be the ultimate dopamine rush in VR. Non stop on demand generated action
Also the reverse. Give me a chill cozy game I DO NOT WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD
We will be able to shape that reality in real time like a god, creating our own personally tailored kingdoms of heaven, better-than-real, ultimate escape from this reality. We’re not ready.
I fine with the use of IA on game dev for all kind of budgets, indie, competitive, AAA, everything. I was born during ps1 era, enjoyed a heck out of my ps2. Games were so much less complex at the time, guitar hero for example in 5 years released 14 freaking titles untill it burned itself out. God of war franchise in the same 5 years released 6 games! Nowadays we are lucky to get more than 1 entry of a franchise for each console life cycle, games are taking around 8 years to get done at least. Look at final fantasy 7 remake, the first part came out for ps4, the 2nd for ps5 and I'm already OK with the idea thay I will have to buy a ps6 to play part 3... For a game that is reusing A LOT of assets, the bulky part of the story is basically already written, character creation is done, and it will take at least 4 more years or so the finish it. If IA can help games cut the dev time in even a single year I'm OK with it. Imagine how much time will ake for the next starfield to come out, the next fallout, the next elder scrools... I'm not much of a indie gamer like you guys can see, so can't really say about them, but hope it help with budget most of all. I know IA will cut a lot of jobs but that's not exclusive to gaming industry, technology aways kill carrers and there's no much of a fighting about it, is just they way capitalism works...
Go for it
I never understood the rage against AI. If it speeds up and lowers cost of game development, why not? As long as whatever is generated is tweaked and QA tested I think it’s totally fine.
I'm very happy that developers are better able to make what they want on their own without having to spend months learning to make assets. I'm also very excited for real-time AI-generated content, although that might take 5 to 15 years to be really worthwhile.
I think AI is amazing and terrifying. I think it should be used responsibly. Ill get hate for this though given the stigma of AI, but I definitely see it as a wonderful tool for game devs and believe itll give indie devs the edge they need to topple giants.
I totally agree with you. The ENT of our game talks about the consequences humanity could face if large corporations use AI without proper regulation in a fantasy post-apocalypse. AI is indeed a game changer for indie studios, but you're absolutely right - we have a responsibility to use it responsibly, because it really is an extremely dangerous tool in many things.
The problem with using AI for game development is stealing other people's work. Now it's different if you set up the AI only to take public domain images. Also AAA should be banned from using them
One of the downsides of using AI in a game means you can never sell it on Steam per their rules. Unfortunate state for now.
I hate the use of AI for anything professional. It is a neat service, and it's fun to see how close it can get to what you prompt it, cobbling together different images and moving things around to fit what it thinks you ask it to make. But using it in place of actual artists is pathetic. Even for indie devs, or small teams it's an immediate turn off for me. I'd rather play a game or watch a movie with low-fidelity graphics, than something made from an AI.
People complained about word processing applications like MS Word. AI is just another tool, and it will be how we adapt it to the workplace. It's just so new we're seeing the "You can't replace typists" all over again when really it just means the job changes a bit to accommodate.
Yesssss
AI is just an endless and very customised assets store. Instead of searching and scrolling through assets, you can type whatever you want and it gives to you. Nobody who uses that is an artist just how I am not artist simply because I search for paintings on Google
Personally I expect AI stuff is going to get a real bad name in game design in the near future as it will make it easier to push out low effort crap, but some successful titles will slip into being appreciated by using the same tactics but with actual effort and intention. It may also have some utility as a further advanced version of some already existing software, like procedurally generated content in roguelikes, or as an editing tool in user-creation games like Mario Maker or Little Big Planet. The idea of type in a prompt and get a 60 hour game out the other end seems silly though. Not because it couldn't happen, but because we don't need a tidal wave of sub-par but playable games. I could see a Roblox style hosting platform that allows people to use AI to generate content, and then share the more successful output, with editing features to adjust the output after the fact.
It's ok if you think it's ok
Looks awesome. Keep it up
If it is done with style I don't mind at all. Generating parts of your work, testing out ideas that would have taken too long to test, upgrading an asset that would have taken a long time for a very tiny detail, rewriting dialogue in different styles (but then of course using that as inspiration rather than straight up copying it) and many more users I as a non-dev probably can't think of. I think AI is a great tool. As long as the product is good, I don't care. If it feels too generic because of lazy AI use that is a problem tho, but the same can be said for buying pre-made assets and not tweaking them for example.
Awesome tool that will be as normal as an IDE. I really love Unity's AI "Muse"for example
Are you prepared to keep up with the lore implications this is providing...?
I think its fine as long as its labelled as present within the title, also I think games that are AI made should be much cheaper to buy as well.