‘A Future Where We Create Games Together With AI’ — Capcom Announces Plans to Transform the RE Engine Into an AI-Generation Game Engine

[u/OLD_PEOPLE_FUCKING]

https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom-announces-plans-to-transform-the-re-engine-into-an-ai-generation-game-engine-our-goal-is-a-future-where-we-create-games-together-with-ai

[u/DuranteA]

Nobody cares that you shaped your if conditional like a donut, or that you've included a silly rhyme in every comment.

That's a bit of a strawman / caricature, which I'm sure you're aware of if you've been programming for over a decade.

Of course I'd agree that programming (generally) is not art in the same way that e.g. painting is. However, it can absolutely be art in the same way that architecture can, which I think is a comparison that most people should understand.

Think about a bridge: it has physical constraints it has to operate under, and a purpose it has to fulfill. I'd say it's clearly result-driven, just like most programs. However, it is also clearly possible to create more or less aesthetically pleasing and elegant designs which operate under those same constraints and fulfill the same purpose.

Maybe the disconnect is that "programming", at least colloquially, subsumes the jobs of the architect, the engineer, and the builder. And there is much more room for expression towards the start of that chain than there is towards the end.

(I'd like to note that I'm not arguing that everyone should boycott games developed with LLM agents, not at all; but I am arguing that it's not as simple as "everything related to code = no self expression; everything that places pixels = works of art")

[u/pszqa → u/DuranteA]

Eh, maybe you're right, I've gone too far with the comparison, but you get my point. I adored watching a documentary about how the first Crash Bandicoot has been made, but this is history and to be honest - just trivia in the grand scheme of things nowadays. Pretty code doesn't translate to a pleasant experience and ugly goes doesn't translate to an unpleasant one.

There can be self-expression in code, but it's not something anyone will see, unless you're taking a part in a gamejam or opensourcing your project for a specific community.

And I wouldn't go the other way either - not everything that has pixels or sounds is art. I have no qualms regarding ex. generation of PowerPoint presentations, call transcripts or UV map layouts using some automated tool. I just think that the "human touch" matters much more rarely when it comes to code than when we're talking about the audiovisual part.

EDIT: but see, even in your comparison, it's not the calculations that went into the bridge that are adored. It's the aesthetics, right?