I’ve written before about how November 2025 was an inflection point for coding agents—the point where Opus 4.5 and GPT-5.1 crossed a tipping point that meant their respective coding agents …
I’m baffled by all of the people who think individuals who just want to make a game without needing thousands of dollars in a development budget are somehow evil. No. AI isn’t perfect and probably never will be. However, it helps people to put their ideas into something that they can’t do and can’t afford to hire someone for. AI, in a way, democratizes the ability to create projects without the need to hire out work that can’t afford otherwise. One day, someone will put out a great game using AI, because it id possible. The code won’t be perfect, but the game will playable and enjoyable - but thousands of people will boycott the game, because a 15 year old kid who doesn’t run a development company made it with AI. Not everything made with AI is slop. It depends on the people using it. Yes, there’s tons of slop out there… and quite a lot of it was written by humans without AI. Personally, I don’t care how the game was made, as long as no people were harmed by the process. Do I think AI companies are acting insane with building data centers every damned where? Yes. However, AI has helped me do things I don’t know how to do, don’t have time to spend years learning how to do, and can’t afford to hire anyone to do because… this shitty economy we’re all slaves to. AI production isn’t always slop, but some people will ever accept that. That’s sad, because they knee-jerk react when they learn that someone used AI because they couldn’t afford to hire people to do it. If the person actually creates a good game with it, though, those people will miss out because they hate AI so much that they ignore reality and brand everything AI as enshittified. South Park, ne South America, uses AI quite well to troll Trump. Iran uses it to troll him too, and personally, I love the results. If a single person uses AI to make a decent game, and someone absolutely will, I’ll play it. So will many others. So many people wear tunnel vision blinders in their hatred of AI. Fine. Don’t participate. It’ll be your loss. But please, stop spamming the universe with "all AI produced products are slop. You don’t know that, and the evidence will eventually prove you wrong. I’ll put money on that, because AI is already solving mathematical and scientific problems that we haven’t been able to solve for centuries. Ask yourself this: if you have leukemia and AI is used to find a cure, will you refuse the cure because it’s “just AI slop?” Don’t get me wrong, the tech bro billionaires pushing AI down people’s throats are wrong. I see those people as just evil, but AI is just another tool. Declaring it all bad is just foolish, though. Right now, it produces more bad than good. That will change, though. Mark my words. AI is here to stay, the genie is out of the bottle and won’t go back, because people are using it to do good things, and just like products made by human hands, a lot of just sucks, but there are pearls and nuggets of gold there too… just like everything made by humans. If AI sucks, it’s because people suck even more.
I really have to agree. GameDev is hard and takes a lot of skills. If you want to create a video game on your own, you need to know Programming. Game Design. Graphic Design. How to create Music & Sound. Storytelling. Marketing. Some people manage to do that, but it’s hard and takes a lot of experience.
I really understand why people use AI to help them here. If you are not a graphic designer, generate some AI art. If you do not know how to code, use Claude. Ask some AI music tool for background music. That does work and it is totally ok.
People will cry that you can maybe ask artists or musicians for help. Yes, you can do that, but finding and managing a group of volunteers is another skillset that not everybody has. And if you’re working on a hobby project, you might also not have the budget to hire artists for hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The author of the article is right: AI is able to create games. And it is a joy to create your own games.
I really have to agree. GameDev is hard and takes a lot of skills. If you want to create a video game on your own, you need to know Programming. Game Design. Graphic Design. How to create Music & Sound. Storytelling. Marketing. Some people manage to do that, but it’s hard and takes a lot of experience.
All you need is effort and creativity. And, my god, of you need AI to create things, you’re brain-dead and lazy.
Volunteers? Have you joined a game jam recently? Every day there are thousands of people all over the world doing ALL this for FREE.
I’m sorry; I’m a game dev and I am sick of this attitude. We literally have ALL the tools we need to create our own games already. There is literally no need to use AI. MAKING A GAME DOESN’T COST YOU AN ARM AND A LEG, LET ALONE THE PLANET.
Kids are learning and making games without any monetary input. I met a 14 year old who made a kick ass rhythm game using Scratch. And you know what sucks? When she goes out to find a job using the skills she’s developed over the years, will she be able to find an entry level position and earn a living? Probably not, because it seems that we’re no longer valuing hard work and the joy of learning.
Woah there. Pulling meaning where there is none - who’s pretending that jams are what studios do? And besides, have you seen how an indie studio works? Because I have, a great many, and there’s no one way to do it. We’re all flying by the seat of our pants and driven by passion.
And you expect one person, no money and an LLM prompt to be able to match a small and experienced indie team, or AAA studio of thousands of people? Get real.
And who said anything about data centres? They’ve been around far longer and are much better off being used to serve the users than an LLM.
And why would you even code your own engine during a jam? Why would using an existing engine be cheating?
I have so many questions that I don’t want to know the answer to.
I’m baffled by all of the people who think individuals who just want to make a game without needing thousands of dollars in a development budget are somehow evil. No. AI isn’t perfect and probably never will be. However, it helps people to put their ideas into something that they can’t do and can’t afford to hire someone for. AI, in a way, democratizes the ability to create projects without the need to hire out work that can’t afford otherwise. One day, someone will put out a great game using AI, because it id possible. The code won’t be perfect, but the game will playable and enjoyable - but thousands of people will boycott the game, because a 15 year old kid who doesn’t run a development company made it with AI. Not everything made with AI is slop. It depends on the people using it. Yes, there’s tons of slop out there… and quite a lot of it was written by humans without AI. Personally, I don’t care how the game was made, as long as no people were harmed by the process. Do I think AI companies are acting insane with building data centers every damned where? Yes. However, AI has helped me do things I don’t know how to do, don’t have time to spend years learning how to do, and can’t afford to hire anyone to do because… this shitty economy we’re all slaves to. AI production isn’t always slop, but some people will ever accept that. That’s sad, because they knee-jerk react when they learn that someone used AI because they couldn’t afford to hire people to do it. If the person actually creates a good game with it, though, those people will miss out because they hate AI so much that they ignore reality and brand everything AI as enshittified. South Park, ne South America, uses AI quite well to troll Trump. Iran uses it to troll him too, and personally, I love the results. If a single person uses AI to make a decent game, and someone absolutely will, I’ll play it. So will many others. So many people wear tunnel vision blinders in their hatred of AI. Fine. Don’t participate. It’ll be your loss. But please, stop spamming the universe with "all AI produced products are slop. You don’t know that, and the evidence will eventually prove you wrong. I’ll put money on that, because AI is already solving mathematical and scientific problems that we haven’t been able to solve for centuries. Ask yourself this: if you have leukemia and AI is used to find a cure, will you refuse the cure because it’s “just AI slop?” Don’t get me wrong, the tech bro billionaires pushing AI down people’s throats are wrong. I see those people as just evil, but AI is just another tool. Declaring it all bad is just foolish, though. Right now, it produces more bad than good. That will change, though. Mark my words. AI is here to stay, the genie is out of the bottle and won’t go back, because people are using it to do good things, and just like products made by human hands, a lot of just sucks, but there are pearls and nuggets of gold there too… just like everything made by humans. If AI sucks, it’s because people suck even more.
Public service announcement: there is a massive puddle of word soup on aisle 72—I repeat: there is a massive puddle of word soup on aisle 72.
Hey, I think you dropped these paragraphs.
¶ ¶ ¶
I wasn’t sure about this, but all the sucking at the end really brought it home.
no u
The process itself is harming, as well as the tool and what was used to make it, so you can stop.
Every process that is a byproduct of good ol capitalism is harmful. If that’s our line in the sand then why are we even using computers.
Half of ais harm is caused exclusively by large businesses for the purpose of selling people ai.
The other half is purely legal bullshit copyright nonsense thats stupid regardless.
Large corporations need to fuck off, their data centers shut down and the ceos hung by their toes over a pit of lava.
But the rest of the argument is wrapped to tightly into the bullshit that is modern copyright for me to give a flying fukk about.
If we had a reasonable copyright system I would lean more towards understanding the outrage but as it is. Meh
I really have to agree. GameDev is hard and takes a lot of skills. If you want to create a video game on your own, you need to know Programming. Game Design. Graphic Design. How to create Music & Sound. Storytelling. Marketing. Some people manage to do that, but it’s hard and takes a lot of experience.
I really understand why people use AI to help them here. If you are not a graphic designer, generate some AI art. If you do not know how to code, use Claude. Ask some AI music tool for background music. That does work and it is totally ok.
People will cry that you can maybe ask artists or musicians for help. Yes, you can do that, but finding and managing a group of volunteers is another skillset that not everybody has. And if you’re working on a hobby project, you might also not have the budget to hire artists for hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The author of the article is right: AI is able to create games. And it is a joy to create your own games.
Um. No, you don’t.
All you need is effort and creativity. And, my god, of you need AI to create things, you’re brain-dead and lazy.
Volunteers? Have you joined a game jam recently? Every day there are thousands of people all over the world doing ALL this for FREE.
I’m sorry; I’m a game dev and I am sick of this attitude. We literally have ALL the tools we need to create our own games already. There is literally no need to use AI. MAKING A GAME DOESN’T COST YOU AN ARM AND A LEG, LET ALONE THE PLANET.
Kids are learning and making games without any monetary input. I met a 14 year old who made a kick ass rhythm game using Scratch. And you know what sucks? When she goes out to find a job using the skills she’s developed over the years, will she be able to find an entry level position and earn a living? Probably not, because it seems that we’re no longer valuing hard work and the joy of learning.
Thanks for sharing that! It’s super nifty ^^
It’s cute and these little jam games are important but pretending they’re the same as what studios do is fairly delusional.
I have dire news for you, itch.io is hosted in the cloud! In a data center! The horror!
Woah there. Pulling meaning where there is none - who’s pretending that jams are what studios do? And besides, have you seen how an indie studio works? Because I have, a great many, and there’s no one way to do it. We’re all flying by the seat of our pants and driven by passion.
And you expect one person, no money and an LLM prompt to be able to match a small and experienced indie team, or AAA studio of thousands of people? Get real.
And who said anything about data centres? They’ve been around far longer and are much better off being used to serve the users than an LLM.
And why would you even code your own engine during a jam? Why would using an existing engine be cheating?
I have so many questions that I don’t want to know the answer to.
We haven’t really valued hard work in a long time here in the good ol us of ass sadly. ):
Aw… :(
I agree with your last quote there, and that’s why I don’t use AI to create games for me ^^
It’s why I don’t use engines!
I couldn’t imagine using an engine for a jam game and getting what I want out of the jam.
But I can respect that decision, because for some folks it’s the vision, for others it’s the marketing, for some it’s making the assets.
There are a lot of pieces that go into making something that stands out.