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I think that the anti-AI stance from gamers online is really about art and art style, not about the code behind the game.

I suspect you are right. Interestingly this reminds me of the John Carmack interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast where he mentions that game devs and game artists/designers are different in their need for attribution with the later treating the discipline more like art (which it clearly can be).

The thing is, customers/players generally don’t care. Just look at the annual incremental releases of games that continue to sell well. Sure, there is also a cohort of players who love the indie scene for its more grassroots or authentic approach to games. Both sides of that player spectrum would ultimately be happy with more quality content, but I agree with you that perhaps one side may be more averse to AI “assisted” game development.

I think the nuance here is for a fan of indie games, how much of the artwork has to be hand generated? What if the artist uses AI to help speed up tedious work like additional frames or animation? What the game is entirely coded in AI but hand drawn (or vice versa).

> I suspect the economics and 'shape' of the gaming industry to change over the next few years. Currently we're in this strange place with game dev where a large portion of software engineers (majority?) are using LLMs and AI coding tools, but for some reason the gaming industry (or at least it's customers) are vehemently anti-AI to the point studios have to put out statements about AI usage to assuage the mobs online.

Users hate AI-generated assets, and justifiably so because they're often really terrible, and they take work away from artists. Regarding LLMs, users are far less passionate unless the project has clearly been slopped out as a quick-and-dirty vibecoded app.

Sure, but not all users hate AI generated assets, there are some who do not care either way (or can’t tell). I know plenty of artists (designers) in digital who are embracing generative AI and getting more done - granted, they are not artists who generate assets for games. But hey, maybe I’m biased working in the industry.

I can sympathise why many hate gen AI for the jobs it’s taken (and there is nuance here because often it’s not gen ai - it’s cost cutting or misaligned expectations from executives) but I feel like the craftsman who embraces the tool can create more value for the world than the craftsman who does not.

In any case, there will be a market for 100% human made art, media, and games -I’m just not sure we should obsess with enforcing (and gatekeeping), if someone who is a mediocre artist with a great game idea wants to make a game and use AI to accelerate themselves to deliver a better product for the world then that’s great.

Most consumers dont really care about AI code but rather hate AI art assets, writing and dialouge