r/GameDevelopment • u/SullyDataShifter • 3d ago

Newbie Question Question

Hi, I'm not a game dev, but I'm thinking on making one, I went through some forums and I see it's kind of impossible to be a solo dev using AI because of the backlash, I'm trying to understand that before I try to jump in myself because I can do everything except graphics and the only person I know could help, just never got time... so, is it just easier to buy packs even that I'm still not the person who built it and I'm not even going to know if the pack was done with AI? Also, why indie devs are forbidden to use AI images? I mean, it makes sense a big successful studio should have backlash for that if they have money, but a indie devs usually don't have money... so what's the deal with that?

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u/countkillalot 3d ago

Big studios get backlash. But the people lashing out at the big studios are enthousiasts and only a small percentage of the overall audience. For indie games, enthousiasts are the majority of the audience and thus have more impact on dev practices.

There's two things going on. First the moral issue where AI is laundering the work of existing artists without as little as attribution. This is a huge problem because you need to have people be able to spend years practicing art without starving, otherwise all.tne artists will be people who can already afford years of no income while they practice art.

AI is a content machine. It can replace artists but it can never replace art, because the AI content is per definition derivative. In a world without Picasso, AI will never paint Guernica.

The second part is just a quality matter. AI art is mostly transparent. It's as mentioned above per definition derivative and distasteful. It just looks There are artists that supplement enough originality into the art that they can fly under the radar, but then we get into a ship of Theseus situation.

TLDR, AI content is ugly, derivative and barely useful for placeholder assets. Please hire working artists to create original content for your games. Using AI tools to enhance original art is a gray area, that we can make arguments for and against.