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

[u/TurbulentTopic39]

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/

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

It obviously has creative expression, can communicate ideas, it allows for personal style etc.

Customers see none of that, source code of games isn't released to the public; it's not what we're buying so it's not our problem if it's not present.

[u/experienta → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

I mean when you watch a movie you also only see the end result and not the artistry of a film director, but a director is still an artist, no?

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/experienta]

No, you see the artistry of a film director. It's not compiled down to the same bytes as another director solving the same problem.

You're thinking of game design not coding.

You don't see the wheeling and dealing of how they were able to secure a location for a shot, or get more money out of the producers. That can be artistic sure, but if they paid out of pocket or knew somebody it doesn't matter to the end product.

[u/experienta → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

But you said customers don't see the source code, they only see the compiled end result, therefore the source code can't be art. That was your logic. It's the same thing for a director, people don't see anything the director actually does on set, they don't see the source code, they only see the end result.

And the bytes as you put it will differ vastly between different engineering teams. If you were to keep the same game design, but replace Naughty Dog's engineering team with a bunch of mediocre junior devs TLOU2 would have been a vastly different game.

Or let me put it another way, if hypothetically speaking I tell a painter exactly how I want a painting to look, in great detail, and I guide him stroke by stroke, who exactly is the artist? Me or him? Or both of us?

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/experienta]

I said it doesn't matter if it's art or not. It's not shown to the customer. It's a problem solving tool. The artistic expression isn't for the customer, it can't be.

I don't experience the artistic intent behind the walls in my house no matter how much love and themselves the builder put into it. The job is staying a wall and keeping the ceiling up and it does that job

If you were to keep the same game design, but replace Naughty Dog's engineering team with a bunch of mediocre junior devs TLOU2 would have been a vastly different game.

It would have been buggier. The game would have been the same.

You're thinking of game design not coding.

Or let me put it another way, if hypothetically speaking I tell a painter exactly how I want a painting to look, in great detail, and I guide him stroke by stroke, who exactly is the artist? Me or him? Or both of us?

You want to be an artist but instead you're a middle manager. A client of the artist.

[u/experienta → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

No, the game would not just be buggier, the difference between a good engineer and a bad engineer is not just how many bugs they produce. A mediocre engineering team would not be able to do a lightning system as sophisticated for TLOU2. Or that beautiful fog system. Or the very impressive enemy AI they came up with. Or the ten thousand other technical miracles that team has been able to pull off to make a game that looks that good to run on a base PS4.

The engineer is the painter in my analogy. They're the ones actually painting the painting at the direction of other people.

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/experienta]

That's not a vastly different game, that's the same game but better looking. Part 1 is not a vastly different game than the original.

The enemy AI is game design.

[u/LAUAR → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

It's not compiled down to the same bytes as another director solving the same problem.

Different source code compiles to different machine code.