And little tools like that give studios like this an edge over AAAs. It’s the start of negating their massive manpower advantage.
In other words, the anti-corpo angle seems well worth the “cost” of a few generations. That’s the whole point of AI protest, right? It really against the corps enshittifying stuff.
And little niche extensions in workflows is how machine learning is supposed to be used, like it was well before it got all the hype.
Otherwise, yeah… but it helps them less, proportionally. AAAs still have the fundamental
Issue of targeting huge audiences with bland games. Making them even more gigantic isn’t going to help much.
AAs and below can get closer to that “AAA” feel with their more focused project.
More that an existing smaller studio doesn’t have to sell their soul to a publisher (or get lucky) to survive. They can more safely make a “big” game without going AAA.
My observation is that there’s a “sweet spot” for developers somewhere around the Satisfactory (Coffee Stain) size, with E33 at the upper end of that, but that limits their audience and scope. If they can cut expensive mocap rigs, a bunch of outsourced bulk art, stuff like that with specific automation, so long as they don’t tether themselves to Big Tech AI, that takes away the advantage AAAs have over them.
A few computer generated textures is the first tiny step in that direction.
So no. AI is shit at replacing artists. Especially in E33 tier games. But it’s not a bad tool to add to their bucket, so they can do more.
Right, so the barrier was that they had to pay for this “outsourced bulk art”, and now with AI they don’t have to. It looks like we are in agreement when I say “I’m glad AI is democratizing the ability for the little guys like you and me to not pay artists for art”?
It takes less time for the actual in house artists to use GenAI with a dataset trained with the company’s own style to generate “bulk art” than it takes them to manage an outsourced company doing the same thing.
Sauce: work in gaming, just talked about this with our art producer.
The outsourcing work is literally “make this texture we made ourselves by hand look like it was snowing” type of shit. You can use GenAI and have it done in 30 minutes or spend 2 hours talking back and forth with the outsourcing partner in 10 minute intervals over a week - interrupting your flow every time.
I think AI is too dumb, and will always be too dumb, to replace good artists.
I think most game studios can’t afford full time art house across like 30 countries, nor should they want the kind of development abomination Ubisoft has set up. That’s what I’m referring to when I say “outsourced”; development that has just gotten too big, with too many people and too generic a target market. And yes, too many artists working on one game.
I think game artists should have a more intimate relationship with their studio, like they did with E33.
And it’d be nice for them have tools to make more art than they do now, so they can make bigger, richer games, quicker, with less stress and less financial risk. And no enshittification that happens when their studio gets too big.
Oh fuck off with that sentiment. You’re very well aware that that’s not what happened here, nor is it what’s happening in a majority of genAI usage cases. In fact in most cases it IS artists using genAI to speed up the design process.
What AI does here is allowing small teams to get art done what otherwise would eat up their budget, aka they literally couldn’t afford. No artists were harmed in these cases because if AI didn’t exist they simply wouldn’t have been hired.
Yes, there IS a currently ongoing shift. Just like there was e.g. with the mechanic loom. Did that kill off handmade clothing? No - even today we still have artists making handmade clothing and in fact making tons more off of it, while the masses got access to cheap clothing. The initial sudden rush to the new tech is annoying and yes it exposes some people to hardships (which is why we should switch from capitalism, and start providing UBI), but it WILL balance out. Remember, the luddites were wrong at the end.
I’ve been programming as a hobby since I was 9. It’s also my job so I rarely finish the hobby projects anymore, but still.
On my first computer (Apple II) I was able to make a complete game as a kid that I felt was comparable to some of the commercial ones we had.
In the 1990ies I was just a teenager busy with school but I could make software that was competitive with paid products. Published some things via magazines.
In the late 90ies I made web sites with a few friends from school. Made a lot of money in teenager terms. Huge head start for university.
In the 2000s for the first time I felt that I couldn’t get anywhere close to commercial games anymore. I’m good at programming but pretty much only at that. My art skills are still on the same level as when I was a kid. Last time I used my own hand drawn art professionally was in 2007.
Games continued becoming more and more complex. They now often have incredibly detailed 3D worlds or at least an insane amount of pixel art. Big games have huge custom sound tracks. I can’t do any of that. My graphics tablets and my piano are collecting dust.
In 2025 AI would theoretically give me options again. It can cover some of my weak areas. But people hate it, so there’s no point. Indy developers now require large teams to count as indy (according to this award); for a single person it’s difficult especially with limited time.
It’d be nice if the ethical issues could be fixed though. There are image models trained on proprietary data only, music models will get there too because of some recent legal settlements, but it’s not enough yet.
What AI does here is allowing small teams to get art done what otherwise would eat up their budget, aka they literally couldn’t afford. No artists were harmed in these cases because if AI didn’t exist they simply wouldn’t have been hired.
That excuse can be used by big publishers as well, no?
And little tools like that give studios like this an edge over AAAs. It’s the start of negating their massive manpower advantage.
In other words, the anti-corpo angle seems well worth the “cost” of a few generations. That’s the whole point of AI protest, right? It really against the corps enshittifying stuff.
And little niche extensions in workflows is how machine learning is supposed to be used, like it was well before it got all the hype.
Most AAA studios at this point have in-house AIs and training, I’m not sure it’s the equalizing factor people think it is.
An OpenAI subscription does not count.
Otherwise, yeah… but it helps them less, proportionally. AAAs still have the fundamental Issue of targeting huge audiences with bland games. Making them even more gigantic isn’t going to help much.
AAs and below can get closer to that “AAA” feel with their more focused project.
100% agree. I’m glad AI is democratizing the ability for the little guys like you and me to not pay artists for art.
That’s precisely not what happened with E33.
The implication here is that you can gain manpower without hiring more men, no?
One builder only uses hand tools, other uses power tools.
That’s the difference, nobody is hiring less people because the tools are better.
More that an existing smaller studio doesn’t have to sell their soul to a publisher (or get lucky) to survive. They can more safely make a “big” game without going AAA.
My observation is that there’s a “sweet spot” for developers somewhere around the Satisfactory (Coffee Stain) size, with E33 at the upper end of that, but that limits their audience and scope. If they can cut expensive mocap rigs, a bunch of outsourced bulk art, stuff like that with specific automation, so long as they don’t tether themselves to Big Tech AI, that takes away the advantage AAAs have over them.
A few computer generated textures is the first tiny step in that direction.
So no. AI is shit at replacing artists. Especially in E33 tier games. But it’s not a bad tool to add to their bucket, so they can do more.
Right, so the barrier was that they had to pay for this “outsourced bulk art”, and now with AI they don’t have to. It looks like we are in agreement when I say “I’m glad AI is democratizing the ability for the little guys like you and me to not pay artists for art”?
It takes less time for the actual in house artists to use GenAI with a dataset trained with the company’s own style to generate “bulk art” than it takes them to manage an outsourced company doing the same thing.
Sauce: work in gaming, just talked about this with our art producer.
The outsourcing work is literally “make this texture we made ourselves by hand look like it was snowing” type of shit. You can use GenAI and have it done in 30 minutes or spend 2 hours talking back and forth with the outsourcing partner in 10 minute intervals over a week - interrupting your flow every time.
I think AI is too dumb, and will always be too dumb, to replace good artists.
I think most game studios can’t afford full time art house across like 30 countries, nor should they want the kind of development abomination Ubisoft has set up. That’s what I’m referring to when I say “outsourced”; development that has just gotten too big, with too many people and too generic a target market. And yes, too many artists working on one game.
I think game artists should have a more intimate relationship with their studio, like they did with E33.
And it’d be nice for them have tools to make more art than they do now, so they can make bigger, richer games, quicker, with less stress and less financial risk. And no enshittification that happens when their studio gets too big.
Oh fuck off with that sentiment. You’re very well aware that that’s not what happened here, nor is it what’s happening in a majority of genAI usage cases. In fact in most cases it IS artists using genAI to speed up the design process.
What AI does here is allowing small teams to get art done what otherwise would eat up their budget, aka they literally couldn’t afford. No artists were harmed in these cases because if AI didn’t exist they simply wouldn’t have been hired.
Yes, there IS a currently ongoing shift. Just like there was e.g. with the mechanic loom. Did that kill off handmade clothing? No - even today we still have artists making handmade clothing and in fact making tons more off of it, while the masses got access to cheap clothing. The initial sudden rush to the new tech is annoying and yes it exposes some people to hardships (which is why we should switch from capitalism, and start providing UBI), but it WILL balance out. Remember, the luddites were wrong at the end.
I’ve been programming as a hobby since I was 9. It’s also my job so I rarely finish the hobby projects anymore, but still.
On my first computer (Apple II) I was able to make a complete game as a kid that I felt was comparable to some of the commercial ones we had.
In the 1990ies I was just a teenager busy with school but I could make software that was competitive with paid products. Published some things via magazines.
In the late 90ies I made web sites with a few friends from school. Made a lot of money in teenager terms. Huge head start for university.
In the 2000s for the first time I felt that I couldn’t get anywhere close to commercial games anymore. I’m good at programming but pretty much only at that. My art skills are still on the same level as when I was a kid. Last time I used my own hand drawn art professionally was in 2007.
Games continued becoming more and more complex. They now often have incredibly detailed 3D worlds or at least an insane amount of pixel art. Big games have huge custom sound tracks. I can’t do any of that. My graphics tablets and my piano are collecting dust.
In 2025 AI would theoretically give me options again. It can cover some of my weak areas. But people hate it, so there’s no point. Indy developers now require large teams to count as indy (according to this award); for a single person it’s difficult especially with limited time.
It’d be nice if the ethical issues could be fixed though. There are image models trained on proprietary data only, music models will get there too because of some recent legal settlements, but it’s not enough yet.
That excuse can be used by big publishers as well, no?
Oh, yes. Big publisher will try it on a huge scale. They cant help themselves.
And they’re going to get sloppy results back. If they wanna footgun themselves, it’s their foot to shoot.
Some mid sized devs may catch this “Tech Bro Syndrome” too, unfortunately.
Yes, like we went over before, it’s literally OK to use AI if the studios that I support use it to generate things that I like.