You can either watch/listen this post on Youtube, or read it below
Hands down and I have to admit that I’ve made a mistake: I used AI in my game project.
I know, it’s nothing new for many, many indie game developers and big studios out there: But for me, personally. It was a terrible mistake.
Let me explain myself
Ever since AI opened its doors for ”consumer use” I could already see all the bad signs it could bring.
The ones who would suffer the biggest blow, would be the creators. The ones who’ve been honing their skills for years to build graphics and all sorts of entertainment.
Suddenly, anyone who had ever even successfully created a stickman, or written a structured, well thought sentence, could start creating graphics, code, novels and everything.
The ones who have no experience in creating something from scratch by only using their practiced skills can never understand what it really takes to create something. Because of it, these people find it very hard to understand what is the problem in AI.
As expected, everything happened very fast. It became a norm in a matter of months. Every art asset, every written sentence started to be questioned if it’s made with AI or not. And in a blink of an eye, the artist's work became less valuable.
Because ”I can do it too”.
Now we see the effects of it by having massive layoffs and shifts in the quality of our entertainment. Suddenly it’s less about the process of creating something extraordinary and more about performance and the output.
But what does this have anything to do with me?
As a solo game developer, I observed this process. I felt angry, sad and powerless to do anything about it. I kept on creating my games hand-made and stood behind the idea of not using the AI in my creations.
I shipped seven games in seven months, all made by hand. The graphics, the stories, the music and the sounds. Using real instruments, my microphone to record sounds while drawing everything by hand.
My games didn’t really get that much of awareness, but I felt proud of them. Every single one of those releases felt like I was able to create something unique and new for people to experience. Be it the art style, the experimental mechanics or weird story.
Still, I kept telling my friends that the internet feels like an echo chamber. No matter what I did, it seemed to have no effect. Only a handful of people followed my journey and I started to think that does anyone even care what I’m doing here.
A couple of weeks ago, I was starting my eight project. I had a vision of a game mechanic I wanted to try out.
Since I felt that not many people really care what I’m doing here, I decided to cut the corners. Instead of drawing everything from scratch, I decided to use AI to create concepts for the images. To have the perspective and colors done faster to my characters and promotional assets.
I still drew the final versions by hand, but the structure and the idea was created by AI.
It was fast. Like very fast, compared to creating it all by myself. But even after a couple of days of working, I started to feel bad about it. I couldn’t feel proud of the things I do. But still, because I felt that people only care about the output: I decided to continue.
Then, an unexpected happened which helped me to realize something powerful.
I recorded a video on my Youtube and wrote a blogpost on my Patreon to tell about this process of using AI in my production pipeline.
Suddenly, my Youtube, email and Discord DM’s got filled with comments suggesting that this is a bad choice. A lot of people felt that they wouldn’t want to see my doing it.
Then I released the demo of my game Mining Grounds and sent emails to influencers to tell them about the game. And suddenly, even the influencers replied, who had basically never done such, asking that am I using AI in my project.
It struck me. It struck me so heavily to realize that I’ve become the villain myself. Even though I only used it in a very minor part of my game development, people could still see that.
After being ”Anti AI” for years and shipping seven games in seven months without any use of AI and then hearing someone asking ”Are you using AI” is like the worst thing I can hear.
But at the same time, it was exactly the thing I had to hear. It awakened me. It helped me to remember WHY I’ve been against it. And after seeing that people actually care HOW I create my games: I’m now much more confident to continue on my selected route.
The route of creating everything by myself, or if I need something for my games which I can’t produce, it needs to be done by a human. Not by copying the creations of someone else by using AI.
Because of this, I’ve decided to postpone my release schedule for Mining Grounds to be able to re-create all the assets in my game that had AI being used for the concept.
But also, this realization helped me to build a confident stand on how I will be creating my games in the future.
I want to be that guy, who keeps on creating games as a human. With its flaws and vulnerabilities.
Before this experience, I thought that I’m alone with the thought of valuing hand-made games. But after seeing the reaction of my followers, I’m confident that there are a lot of people who share this mindset.
And I want to stand together with those people.
I have added the ”NO AI” information box to all of my games on Steam and that’s exactly what I will be doing with all my future games as well.
For Mining Grounds, once I get all the art assets replaced: I will add this box to the game description with pride. Since that box especially will remind me that there are a lot of people who helped me to remember the importance of it.
And I thank you all, so much. For jumping in and sharing your thoughts.
It was much more valuable for me than you can ever realize.
(This post was written without AI)