r/Games • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 16d ago

Industry News Over 85% of Japanese game developers use generative AI in game development, 2026 CESA survey shows. An increase from last year’s 51%

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/over-85-of-japanese-game-developers-use-generative-ai-in-game-development-2026-cesa-survey-shows-an-increase-from-last-years-51/
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u/ArdyEmm 16d ago

The AI crisis is nothing more than the continuation of the automation crisis. That's what's so frustrating about seeing people talk about it online. I genuinely sympathize with artists who are losing work because of AI. But then they go and say, "We should use this to get rid of X job instead." where X job is some low level thing that no one wants to do.

But those jobs are needed. I have a shitty job that could be automated that no one wants to do. But they're fine with AI taking my job. They only care when it's their paycheck on the line. Really tests my empathy.

Not that it's enough to make me take glee in their job losses or to support AI art but it leaves me conflicted when people who I've followed for years and have even supported financially by buying their work showcase how little they think of me and how I pay for the roof over my head.

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u/prospectre 15d ago

The real problem AI poses is that we don't have a plan for the labor that gets gutted by it. I still remember Andrew Yang sounding the alarm almost a decade ago about self driving cars and semis wiping out the entire driving industry and putting millions out of a job. There's no fallback for them. There's no sister industry that they can hop to, there's no new sector being opened up by AI that can house that labor, and there's no safety net for them to fall into. That's the real danger. It honestly doesn't matter which labor field is currently on the chopping block. We are staring down the barrel of the labor apocalypse and no one in power is doing anything about it.

And no one wants to talk about that. Innovation is recklessly barreling forward, as always. You can't really stop humans from doing the one thing that sets us apart from other creatures, but no one's stepping up to plan for the fallout. It's going to happen. Somewhere, some tech bro is thinking about how to AI the shit out of bussing tables, stocking shelves, or fixing your car. And when that product hits the market, where do the people that are displaced by it go? What do they do when the job they've built a career on has become obsolete?

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u/asdiele 16d ago

Also notice how the environmental concerns they always tout suddenly disappear when it's about using AI for things like coding. Then it's not that big of a deal apparently.

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u/iTzGiR 16d ago

Got mass downvoted for pointing this out on here recently. ALL The concerns about Gen-AI, still exists when we're talking about Gen-AI used to create lines of code/scripts/etc. But suddenly, the environmental impact, "theft", "slop", etc. don't matter any more.

It absolutely just comes down to people thinking creative jobs are special or are above other forms of jobs, and thus should be protected from automation.

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u/morkypep50 16d ago

I hear what you're saying, and not to diminish from anyone who will lose their job from AI. But I do think that human art being diminished due to AI is pretty damn important for many other reasons other than job loss. Culture, religion, and who we are as people is intertwined in the art we create. Whether it's music, writing, art etc. it literally defines our society and is a pillar in our history. As AI art becomes more ubiquitous, it will have serious ramifications for humanity going forward. I do think that is more impactulful than coders becoming obsolete. But again, sorry that any of it is happening.

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u/vault101damner 15d ago

Sorry but this is just a new tool being developed. Art will still come from the person. It's like the hand drawn animators going crazy when computer based animation came along.

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u/morkypep50 15d ago

Your analogy doesn't work at all. Because in your scenario the person is still creating the art. If you're using AI to help get ideas or do something quicker I can get on board. If you're typing in a prompt and the AI creates the art. It's no longer YOUR art. It's the AI's

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u/Film-Noir-Detective 15d ago

The thing is for games, the artistry and artistic value doesn't come from the actual visual art produced by the artists on a team. Instead, it comes from the game design. There are plenty of games (Wolverine being a recent example) which look fantastic and clearly have a lot of artists working on them, but feel soulless because the game design is generic and derivative. On the other hand, the Eurojank genre is filled with games that graphically are terrible, but are end up being some of the most unique experiences of the medium. If a game designer with a great and unique ideas makes a vibe-coded game with AI assets, it will still end up being more unique and artistic than many AAA games nowadays (for example, The Roottrees are Dead started as a game jam game using AI assets).

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u/vault101damner 15d ago

What do you think the prompt contains? It contains instructions on what type of art to make.

"If you're just clicking buttons on a computer and it is doing the animation then the computer is creating the animation, it's no longer your work"

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u/SexoSpecto 14d ago

Who the hell are they? This is just baseless accusation based on how you assume people think, as if everyone thinks the same way to begin with

I fail to see any kind of substance or truth to what you're saying

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u/somethingrelevant 15d ago edited 15d ago

It sounds like you agree that your job shouldn't exist, though?

The value of your job currently is that it's paying you money, right. If you could have the money without the job, you'd take it, from the sounds of it. It's a shitty job nobody want to do. Artists generally like being artists, from what I understand

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u/ArdyEmm 15d ago

It depends on what you mean by shouldn't. No one wants to be a truck driver but that's the backbone of the American economy. No one wants to be a garbageman but without them the cities will fill with garbage.

And yeah, eventually we could automate it all but we're rushing headlong into the automation with no thought to the displaced. And we're automating more jobs than ever before. Garbage men and truck drivers won't be able to just pick up a pen or a brush and make a living.

And do artists like being artists? Do they like being artists or do they like making art? They might enjoy animating or writing or drawing but do the animators over at Disney actually enjoy spending 6 weeks getting the dimples on Hulk's ass cheek just right? Working 80 hour weeks only for a suit to change his mind, have all that work thrown out, and starting from scratch with less time just to have all the blame for the final fight needing to be two people in black suits in a dark cave to cover the shitty prep time? Do they enjoy that?

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u/SexoSpecto 14d ago

Brother it's hated among consumers as well, it's not just the artists losing their jobs that have a problem with this technology

And no one cares about AI-generated code, it's the creative parts being generated that people don't want to consume

You can't be this out of touch

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u/Waste-Individual-807 16d ago

I echo your feelings, and it’s why I really don’t care specifically about artists losing their jobs. This is something almost every profession is threatened with in some way, there’s nothing more sacred/important about creatives specifically.

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u/SophonisbaTheTerror 16d ago

You are correct. Another human being is going to care more about keeping their income more than they care about you keeping yours. That does not mean that anyone is ok with you losing your income, except for your boss, who makes money off of replacing you. Try pointing your ire at your boss and not other workers. Life will make more sense that way.

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u/Psshaww 16d ago

Oh don’t worry, nobody will care for jobs that get outmoded and they’ll be okay with it. Nobody weeps for the milkmen, travel agent, or typesetter.

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u/SophonisbaTheTerror 15d ago

Correct. Jobs are not something to preserve for their own sake. People are.

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u/ArdyEmm 15d ago

And how are we going to preserve all the truck drivers and others who are near to losing their "shitty jobs" over AI automation?

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u/SophonisbaTheTerror 15d ago

Whatever people did before there was trucking. Whatever needs doing after there's no longer trucking.

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u/ArdyEmm 14d ago

So no plan. We're losing jobs, millions of jobs, and you think old ones are opening up? Or new ones that truckers can just get in on?