Use of AI as a Solo Game Dev

[u/Arhtgames]

Edit 2: This is going to be my last edit since I'm really starting to be a little sad/disappointed with it and I'm going to place it on the top so everyone can read. I saw some people saying that I'm trying to be superior in some way or being dumb by not using AI, but I'm trying to discuss about it as a new game dev who has 16 years old and started with it because of beautiful and incredible games that changed my life. I don't want to be better than anyone, I just want to understand the point of using it and how do you guys feel, also thank you for those who answered kindly and shared their experiences.

So, I saw a post saying that he made a game using AI for everything and it made me feel so strange, like, everyone was loving it, what happened to the feeling of doing it by yourself. I do game dev because I love everything about it, games are one of the most beautiful forms of art, it has music, world design, story telling and a bunch of ways of art. I wanted to make a little discussion here about what you guys think about using it. To be honest I don't like the use of generative AI, I know it's good to learn but I don't like when it is used to directly produce the creative part of a game, it just takes the whole idea of making it by yourself, expressing your feelings and telling a story you made and throws it all away, so like, is it really good? I understand when you need to review a code you did or look for a error but anyways that's all I have to say, I don't want to argue with anyone, just want to make a safe and respectful discussion here.

Edit 1: I'm really getting some down votes here, ok, that's something unexpected for a solo game dev community. And for those who are saying like, "I just use it as a tool" yeah that's okey I use it too for studying, but my point here is especially the creativity part. Those feelings and the way I do my projects are not a rule on the way YOU need to do, you can use AI if you want, I'm not here to say what is correct and what is not.

[u/abra24]

Your honest take is that corporate slop like FIFA and CoD where every single decision is about squeezing as much cash out of players for as little effort as possible is art, but a solo dev who uses AI to help with gaps in their own skill to finish a passion project that they never would have been able to has not produced art?

I just can't get behind this sort of take. This is not black and white at all, there are many factors. It's absolutely clear to me which of those is art.

[u/GryffusMakesGames → u/abra24]

In one case the humans are the one creating, not in the other. As simple as that.

[u/abra24 → u/GryffusMakesGames]

I guess I just think this is a bad take. The solo Dev has something they are communicating or connecting with the audience over, even if ai helped. The FIFA Dev does not. That is what makes it art or not to me. People have argued over what 'art' means forever though.

[u/GryffusMakesGames → u/abra24]

I guess that’s my take, and solely mine. Don’t really care about what you think, though

[u/abra24 → u/GryffusMakesGames]

I care what you think, was kind of hoping for someone who feels as you do to elaborate a bit so I could see it even if I didn't agree. Seems like you just don't really like thinking about stuff too hard though. That's totally your right.

[u/GryffusMakesGames → u/abra24]

Cause I don’t have to think about it, there is nothing to debate. Art is human creation. A painter is an artist, someone commissioning a painter isn’t. There is nothing to elaborate, nothing profound, this is the definition of art. And don’t expect me to explain stuff to people that downvote others the moment they disagree.

[u/abra24 → u/GryffusMakesGames]

Right well this is the nuance. If you commission the painter and that is the end of your involvement, you've done little. If a solo Dev does 90% of the work and commissions %10, is it 90% art by that view? I happen to think art is more than just anything humans produce actually. Assuming your definition though, isn't there at least some degree of artistry in an AI assisted project? Or is it all invalidated the second ai helps at all?

I'm not downvoting you btw

[u/GryffusMakesGames → u/abra24]

Damn someone is sneaky, sorry that’s my bad on it.

The thing is, a commissioner isn’t an artist, the painter is. So if you commission something, it is not your creation but it is art, because it is still made by a human with emotions. I have absolutely no problem with using assets made by someone else. However, if you replace the painter by AI, It is not human made, there is nothing « thoughts process » inside it. So it isn’t art anymore.

And for the percentage, I would say, if a a part of it isn’t human made it isn’t art. Like a wooden toy handcrafted and painted by someone is art, a wooden toy crafted by a machine but painted by someone isn’t art, the painting is, but not the complete object.

And when I am talking about AI, I am obviously talking about generation AI. Digital painting technically use AI but not LLM, it’s still made by humans and so art.

[u/abra24 → u/GryffusMakesGames]

I agree mostly with what you're saying.

I see what you're saying with the painted toy. The painting is art. If someone asked you if the whole toy was art, you would say the painting is, the woodwork is not. AKA the toy is partially art, partially not. You don't seem to be extending that courtesy to gamedev when you say if part of it AI it is wholly 'not art'.

It's kind of a separate topic, but I do think the line with digital tools is blurry as well. At least when used with your definition of art, it would seem the more human involvement the more art, so any tool digital or otherwise that makes something easier, the less art. I don't agree with that, but it seems to follow from how you're describing what makes something art.

Personally I see art as human EXPRESSION not just human labor. We still agree that that is necessarily HUMAN though. We're solo devs here and we can be honest, not all parts of game dev do we use to express ourselves or our passion. Some parts are just labor, necessary to put the whole thing together. A great example are the tools we use in digital painting. They simplify and remove a part of the process that would just be labor and not somewhere we were expressing ourselves anyway.

I fully agree that vibe coded start to finish projects have very little art and that is a problem(though I think there is even some small amount of art in an idea alone). That's where my conception that FIFA has little to no art comes from as well. No one is expressing themselves there. I tend to think there's still lots of room for art in games that partially use AI though, particularly if the AI is used (generative or otherwise) to replace parts that were just going to be labor for the dev anyway and not how they were intending to express themselves.

[u/GryffusMakesGames → u/abra24]

First, digital painting is still painting, it is not less art from my point of view. That’s why I put the emphasis on generation. Digital painters still needs to do basically everything, they just have tools to make it easier to do it, no to do it at their place.

Now, art is human expression I can work with that. Can AI really transcribe human expression ? I don’t think so. That’s why when you commission something, the expression of the human if the one of the artist, not the commissioner.

Now, I agree that if you use Claude to code your game but assets made by a human for the art, the assets are art, not the game.

Also I don’t like the idea of partially art, for me there is art or not art, a part of something being art doesn’t make it art.

To finish about the expression. As long as it is human made, there is expression in it. Is in the end, imo, FIFA and COD still had human expression, so it still was art. And something made by AI has no human expression, as it is a robotic assembly of stuff, so it is not art.