Code Monkey highlights Tasty Chef, a restaurant-management game that openly advertises extensive AI use. He reports an estimated 25,000 copies sold and $200,000 in gross revenue, alongside 92% positive reviews. His argument: players may accept generated assets when the finished game feels coherent and enjoyable.

The Steam page supports the narrower observation. At capture, it showed 92% positive ratings across 487 reviews. Developer Xpercent Games discloses that generative AI produced all visual art assets and music. The developer reviewed, selected and integrated that material; the game generates no AI content during play.

  • Sales are estimates. The newsletter supplies no estimation method or audited revenue statement. Gross revenue also precedes platform fees, refunds, taxes and development costs.
  • The claimed review penalty is speculation. Code Monkey guesses that AI now costs games 3–5 percentage points of positive reviews, versus 10–30 previously. This example supplies no comparison group to measure either figure.
  • Buyers are a selected audience. Positive reviews tell us about people who bought and reviewed this game. They leave out players who avoided it because of AI.

Code Monkey compares this with the fading stigma around purchased asset packs. That analogy addresses presentation and perceived effort; training rights and creator compensation remain separate questions. The same newsletter contains a Synty sponsorship and asset-store affiliate promotions.

His second gamedev argument is about visibility. Fear of AI-assisted copying can tempt developers to hide their work. He recommends continuing to show the game, gather feedback and build wishlists, because obscurity can kill a commercial project before a copycat does.

For a small studio, the practical lessons are to test the whole player experience, disclose asset provenance clearly and build an audience early. Tasty Chef demonstrates that heavy AI use can coexist with satisfied buyers. One success cannot establish that the stigma has disappeared across Steam.