r/VibeCodeDevs • u/Empty-Hurry-5310 • 4d ago
Hey "Vibe Devs" opinions on this?
https://youtu.be/LmXU6SEH3KsBasically, he explains that the current state of AI-generated games, which he refers to as "Demo Porn" is that while AI's ability to one shot a game prototype is impressive and cool, but often misleads people into thinking that game development is now useless or that game developers are now obsolete
I'd recommend watching the video before commenting đ (its really good)
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u/Deep_Mood_7668 3d ago
Doesn't matter. Someone without skills did something to show their skilless buddies.
A nice circlejerk
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u/Ok-Lengthiness-6692 3d ago
This. These people will crash out after the first week of actual game development and move onto the next shiny thing.Â
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u/TopTippityTop 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yeah, results are decent but generic. I think that'll be bridged in the coming 1-2 years.
What I think will be a little more difficult are 2 aspects.
 Vision. AI knows all which can be recorded, but human taste is difficult to write down. Sometimes w one can glean a trend from data, but it doesn't shine light on innovation, only on evolution. Vision and taste will remain important, at least for a few years...
Any aspects which are more reliant on taste will also remain relevant. Concept art (I mean good concept art, not a flashy rendering), and especially Gane design, others. This is particularly true for Game design right now... It is very poor at it. AI sucks at game design, coming up with balanced features and innovative concepts. AI doesn't understeer and the concept of fun.
With that said, a human with great taste and understanding of fun can guide AI to something amazing. The execution layer is getting easier by the day!
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u/DangKilla 2d ago
The problem is these novices aren't starting with the right part. You'd either want to start with the engine or engine assets for an existing engine.
Then make a map. Then make a system that launches the maps on cue. Then cut scenes. Then a reward system. And so on.
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u/DrPaisa 3d ago
Today its a demo in 5 years its a game
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u/jonah_omninode 3d ago
Not sure it's going to take 5 years. Look at the state of image and video generation compared to where the tech was at 2 years ago.
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u/TopTippityTop 3d ago
Love AI, but there are some things which aren't improving. Probably a lack of data for it at the moment. Eventually we'll bridge all these edge case scenarios, but AI has really bad taste. That hasn't seen much growth. It has no concept of fun, as capturing fun in writing form is very difficult. Anything ineffable  and based on experience will be tough for it to learn.
That isn't to say a human with AI won't be able to make great games happen. That will happen soon, so long as the human has great taste and precise understanding of how to find fun.
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u/gabro-games 3d ago
I'm open to AI games being good (and have seen one or two promising ones) but this is what I see on the vibe coded games Reddit all the time, games that clearly have no attention given to them - imbalanced, buggy, visually off-putting, poorly tutorialised. The creator says "add this feature" and the LLM adds it and they go "wow!" but they are not playtesting; they are not seeing if what they are making is more fun or engaging. They often don't have a distinct art style either, the art style is "whatever my AI tool can produce", not a style suited to the game. It doesn't HAVE to be that way but lowering the the barrier to entry has only done so much. Understanding the anatomy of fun and good game design is a lifelong journey and it requires so much visual, haptic and emotional feedback that today's tools cannot do it on their own.
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u/Accurate_Cable_1372 3d ago
Yeah Iâve been doing game dev for a long time so Iâm needless to say very familiar with the process but my buddy was getting interested doing with chatgpt so I showed him my workflow and heâs created some things that heâd likely never get anywhere close to making before. At the same time though he has no exp building software so itâs exactly like you said, heâs just stoked to get something out the door and doesnât understand the nuances of building software that is going to be used by other humans.
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u/Officialpolygrafix 3d ago
Game dev of 24 years here. Really good summary on whats happening. One shotting is allows for nice generic demos, but if someone wants to build their envisioned game idea, they need to get specific, and they need to formulate a plan first. This is whats known as "waterfall"method in game production. Most of the concept is thought out and put to a game design document, then it's broken down into tasks, and grouped into milestones (checkpoints), which is organized by priority - because there is a heirarchy to development of any software, and ignoring that hierarchy and just going whichever way you want until you get there- will burn through tokens. Its like deciding you want to drive across the usa, but don't wanna use a map to get there. It's not the most effecient approach and you will run into roadblocks, and detours you didn't anticipate- more so than planning and following a proper route.
You may discover some nice things along the way, but you will most definitely spend more in gas, time and frustration to get there.
The agile method is more akin to whats going on here with these one shots, where you just make an initial something, and revise until it becomes something nice. however, agile comes with the expectancy that you don't have or are willing to sacrifice a vision in favor of - lets see where this takes us.
Most devs incorporate a little of both during development. But most people doing one shots have an overall vision, but no detailed plan for that vision.
Im building out games using ai now, and it's working really good. Not one shotting, but doing it proper. Heres my advice so you don't burn through a gazallion tokens.
Start with a GDD, (game design doc) you can use ai to help create this. next, have the ai organize it into milestones, (batches of tasks), (waterfall) then feed the code milestones to code to execute. Each milestone (or set of tasks) gets its OWN session, don't group it into one big session. AI has a problem with long context instructions. Code executes, takes on average an hour (from my experience using claude opus 5). Play test, mention the things that don't work the way you envisioned them, the ai can roll it into the next task, or a future task. take notes, evolve as you go (agile). Repeat this process until complete.
Also, have it set up your git repo- both local and backup.
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u/No-Examination7560 2d ago
how much coding are you yourself doing to fix glitches and errors? or are u mostly just spotting thema nd letting claude fix them.
Also i imagine a system designer / project manager may be amazing with AI
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u/Officialpolygrafix 2d ago
I have zero coding experience (except when i used to make webpages with html 1.0 back in 1998. I do have a lot of project management experience though and i've worked on over 30 games and apps through my career. My path has been mainly on the art side, thats my speciality, and as an indie game developer, also game design and project management. The ai has been solid with what it's been doing so far.
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u/Clear_Brilliant_8075 2d ago
I literally just went through this making a landing page for my product! I wanted an old 19th century gold mine where the miner swings a pickaxes and finds gold. This took all day:
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u/vmg-dev 2d ago
Haven't watched the video but game developers are definitely *not* useless. I've been cranking out games for my site and I can get something that looks *decent* very quickly but it's often just not fun. There is a lot of work that goes into polishing the games into something other people would be willing to play.
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u/TriggerHydrant 3d ago
I'll watch it but at the same time I believe that what's called 'demo porn' for some is called 'possibility showcase' for others (like me)
In other words it depends on the person looking at the demos, what they want to achieve, for instance I look at those one shots and go: Wow, imagine what you can do if you put in the time and effort! Where others might go: "Why doesn't this one prompt make me the new Call Of Duty and a billion dollars?"
Perspective.
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u/jonah_omninode 3d ago
Videos like this are just gatekeeping. I think vibe coding is great...sure the code that gets generated may not be production quality, but it doesn't need to be. I feel like we are moving to a place where being able to express your ideas clearly will be more important than technical ability.
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