An r/aigamedev thread (99 points) reacts to the comment section of an anti-AI gamedev YouTube video — the familiar “AI games will never be good, AI devs have no taste or passion” story. The OP’s counter: most people who call themselves game devs never ship a game and never will, so why does the industry hate on something that increases velocity in a space where most games never ship?
The replies carry the real substance:
- The shipping-rate argument (OP): most “game devs” never ship, so velocity is the actual bottleneck
- The Concord counterpoint (Arkenhammer): the hard part is making a game that sells — AI might cut a year and $50M off a $400M failure, but it still fails. “AI is a shotgun, not a rifle. We don’t need more games, we need better games.”
- Marketing is the hard part (OP, a GTM professional): “having a great game or product is literally 10% of the battle”; most games never even reach a Steam launch page
- Code vs. art split (featherless_fiend): AI code is getting the pass — helped by Steam not requiring disclosure for code — while AI art is still rejected outright
- The 90s parallel (brothersword43): digital art was called “ruining the industry” and “not a real artist” the same way; the talented people learned the new tools
- “You can’t frost a turd” (AutomaticTalent): the game has to be fun — his AI couldn’t answer whether it looks good, sounds good, or is fun
The strongest exchange is the OP’s velocity argument meeting Arkenhammer’s rifle-vs-shotgun rebuttal: if your process doesn’t make games that sell, added velocity isn’t helping. Both sides get critiqued too — antis overshoot, but AI enthusiasts who couldn’t code yesterday now lecture professionals. The useful read: acceptance is following the disclosure line (code in, art out), and the actual constraint on the AI era is still making a game that someone wants to play.