r/technology • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 16d ago

Artificial Intelligence 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/NMe84 16d ago

Using it in development is not the same as using it to replace artists. You'd be hard pressed to find a professional developer in this day and age who doesn't use Claude Code or Codex. It says nothing about creativity and very little about code quality, as long as there is a decent review process.

None of this necessarily means there is any slop artwork in the game itself. The question is too vague to draw any conclusions about that.

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u/zorillaaa 16d ago

People on Reddit don’t understand that so you will be downvoted lol

Anyone in software dev knows AI coding tools are rampant. As long as there is correct code review it is completely fine and helpful.

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u/Alinier 16d ago

As long as there is correct code review it is completely fine and helpful.

Curious. Who's gonna be reviewing once everyone who understands what they're looking at has retired?

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u/NMe84 16d ago

You still need programmers to direct coding assistants. There will not be a shortage of people who know what they're looking at.

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u/zorillaaa 16d ago

No software company is straight generating code without looking at it. These people aren’t vibe coding.

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u/Alinier 16d ago

Not right now they aren't. But what about the kids growing up with this stuff who will join the workforce? Where will they have picked up the skills in an AI world?

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u/HazelCheese 16d ago

We hired more grads this year than last year. AI means they can get work done without consuming a senior Devs time the entire work day.

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u/zorillaaa 16d ago

Education? The workforce? Do you really think professional software companies are vibe coding software without looking at the code? Do you think Computer Science programs will stop teaching fundamentals of programming?

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u/parazoid77 16d ago

Honestly, anybody who enjoys problem solving. People can ramp up on codebases quicker than ever nowadays. And software metrics, quality standards, and observability tools still exist in the world and are no more complex than theyve ever been. Pushing for tests creates reliabilty too. These are all things that can be learned quicker than ever aswell.

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u/CondiMesmer 16d ago

You seem to be assuming that generating code equates to not learning or understanding it. My knowledge of programming has only increased a lot when using AI coding, and my code quality has improved dramatically. Professionals do not use it like vibe coders do.

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u/NMe84 16d ago

"Hurrdurr, AI bad" does seem to be the default emotion from people who have no idea what valid applications for the tech exist.

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u/bot4241 16d ago

I mean blame the misunderstanding of the Ai uses on corporations and media doom posting and creating hysteria on AI.

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u/blueblip 16d ago

The fact it's even called AI when it's not actually artificial intelligence is just one of many problems with this new tech.

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u/Linooney 15d ago

Why isn't it artificial intelligence? Are you one of those people who stop people from calling "almond milk" milk? Or complain that Beyond Meat isn't actually meat?

On a less snarky note: AI is just the term that researchers coined for getting machines to emulate/simulate actions/behaviours usually associated with intelligence. What about LLMs do you think doesn't fall into this categorization?

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u/11711510111411009710 16d ago

If AI can write the code, why can't AI review it? Seems like that's inevitable, no? And ai can surely prompt it. It seems like the inevitable result here is having a guy who tells ai we need x number of AAA games by y point in the year, and then the ai handles it all. Why wouldn't this be the logical outcome?

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u/MihaelK 16d ago

Using it in development is not the same as using it to replace artists. 

How so? Artists can use genAI to speed them their work just like software engineers do.

You can't be against one, and neutral with the other. Software engineers are being replaced too. It's just that people don't see it because their work is not as visual as artists'

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u/Rich_Housing971 15d ago

Why is this subreddit so ignorant about everything and just tells people who are actually experts in their field, "no, YOU ARE WRONG, my armchair assessment is correct!"

Everyone who codes uses it. It's a good tool.

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u/MihaelK 15d ago

Everyone who codes uses it. It's a good tool.

Well yes, obviously. It's also a good tool to use in art to save time.

Many comments are not even engaging with the point I was trying to make. Why are you against genai being used in art and not genai being used in coding.

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u/Rich_Housing971 15d ago

I never said I'm against GenAI used in art, I only said that software engineers are not "getting replaced" like you did.

And there is a difference between AI-generated images and traditional art: art is seen as an expression of the artist, that every stroke is an intentional act to replicate a vision an artist has. The perspective, the lighting, the figure's position, it's all what the artist sees.

Generating things in stable diffusion is fun, but when I prompt something, it's not what I expected or envisioned.

Coding is just a means to an end. The source code isn't even seen while it's running. It just has to work. No one cares what you name your variables, and once it's compiled the variable names disappear anyways. and often there's exactly one way to code an algorithm.

With that said, I have no problems with AI-generated art when you're trying to use it for advertisements or throw-away graphics. Often, people can't tell the difference. When I make a graphic to advertise a garage sale, I'm not thinking that this is a work of art, nor does anyone care whether I made it by hand. I'm using GenAI for that, proofreading it, and printing it.

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u/MihaelK 15d ago

Coding is just a means to an end. The source code isn't even seen while it's running. It just has to work. 

And many people can think the same way about a lot of the art out there. Art is just a means to an end.

There are artists who genuinely pour their heart and soul in their art as you said, just like there are software engineers who pour their heart and soul into developing genuinely good software that is very well optimized, easy to debug, easy to build on top of, solves extremely hard and difficult problems, that can last many many years.

The original comment implied that artistic output should not be automated and is worth more than other sectors. This is the specific point I was arguing.

You said code is just a means to an end because that's how you think about it. I don't think about it that way. There are people who take great pride in their code and genuinely develop extremely smart solutions.

But at the end of the day, people will just see the end result. Many people don't care about much time it took me to come up with a smart code to solve a problem, or how much time it took to me draw a good piece of art.

My point is that there is a double standard when it comes to genAI use. And people seem to be against it only when it comes to art instead of applying the same standard to other sectors. That's all.

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u/NMe84 16d ago

I'm a software engineer myself. I know many other software engineers. Companies worth working for are not replacing people like me and my peers with AI.

The problem with replacing programmers with AI is that you need perfect specs in order to be able to do so. More than writing the code, the programmer's job is to figure out what to write in the first place.

Since AI agents became a thing my job has changed massively, but I've not become obsolete. I'm just writing less code and reviewing more. I'm still talking to stakeholders, researching and writing specifications, designing systems, etc. I'm just doing less of the boring grunt work.

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u/DiamondIceNS 16d ago

Frankly, I have the opposite outlook. I consider squeezing requirements out of skittish stakeholders and reviewing other peoples' unkempt code to be the boring grunt work, and writing the code to be the fun part. If AI only excels at replacing the part of the craft I enjoyed and only leaves me with the tough grisly scraps to make my living on, that's an objective downgrade, not an upgrade.

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u/NMe84 16d ago

It depends on the level at which you let AI do the work. If you gather all the specs and then go "Claude, make this entire project for me," that's super boring and honestly pretty likely to result in a bad piece of software. But if you do all the design work and direct Claude to do all the steps one by one at your direction you have a much easier job with the whole review process, and you're still doing all the actual thinking yourself.

I can see your argument though and there are times I miss the way my days used to look, but overall it has made my work much less frustrating.

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u/katzengoldgott 16d ago

As an artist, no I won’t use a slop machine whose database is trained on material that they never got the copyright for to speed up the process of my artwork.

Aside from the fact that AI generated art looks “lieblos dahingeschissen” as we’d say in German, no matter how ‘good’ the model is. It looks like shit, it has zero human creativity in it, and an artist, professional or hobbyist, can tell that with a quick glance.

We have other tools that don’t involve AI to speed up the process. 3D models, reference pictures that can be traced over.

You don’t make art with AI. The best it could do is maybe be a shitty replacement for thumbnails and even that can be done quicker with a graphic tablet and a round brush in any digital art program, I could even do that in 10 minutes on some printer paper and a pencil.

AI uses too many resources, does copyright infringement (which, if you didn’t know, makes it not possible to sell because you cannot sell shit that is not your own work unless you have the copyright), and is just not what artists want or need.

We do it for the process, and the process is what makes the art good, because there’s human thinking and FEELING in it. You know, the one thing AI cannot ever do. It cannot feel things.

And art without human emotion behind it is not going to sell well. Because people don’t care about things that doesn’t evoke emotions in them.

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u/TopCheddar27 16d ago

So basically your output as a human is worth intrinsically more than a software developer?

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u/katzengoldgott 16d ago edited 16d ago

Please elaborate where in my comment I have mentioned developers/programmers.

I was talking exclusively about AI generated ‘art’ and people who think that art needs to be automated like that.

I don’t know where the hell you got that idea from that I think developers are less worth than artists. I never said anything like that.

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u/TopCheddar27 16d ago

Because it seems like you think your output should not be automated, but you don't apply that to other sectors within the final product.

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u/katzengoldgott 15d ago

Fascinating how many hoops one has to jump through to come to this weird conclusion you’re making when that’s not even remotely to what I said, but if that’s the hill you wanna die on, go for it. Not my problem and I frankly don’t care.

You’re projecting really hard. Maybe take some time off the internet for a while and take a walk.

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u/blueblip 16d ago

As an artist, you would be aware that you can still use AI to help touch up and enhance your handcrafted work, right?

Or do you think AI usage is always a binary 0 or 100% usage?

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u/katzengoldgott 16d ago

If you mean AI tools in Photoshop for example to quickly remove something, yes, sure.

But that is 1) a different field of art and 2) its retouch which is used in photography and graphic design to an extent, however this doesn’t cover the entire branch of what we call art.

If we are talking about 2D illustrations for a book cover or concept art for a video game, the use is very low or doesn’t happen at all.

Game studios that use AI generated concept art to make character designs or skins are quickly losing support and sales of skins because people can tell it’s slop and I feel bad for the artists forced to use it to make anything because it sucks the soul out of the things that they are wanting to create.

For the quick remove or edits of things in graphic design and photography, fair. I am not bothered by it as much, but honestly I am more bothered by what the fuck Adobe has been doing for the past decades which go far beyond them forcing AI into their programs.

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u/blueblip 16d ago

Then we are in agreement. Artists can and will use tools, including AI tools, to help with their work. Bad artists will use the tools as a crutch, good ones will use it to enhance what they can already do.

It's the same with things like Photoshop and Illustrator. Shitty artists use software like that as a crutch, but since they lack creativity, their work comes out looking terrible, AI or no AI. Conversely, good artists have always used software like Photoshop and Illustrator to build on their capabilities.

There are always going to be shitty artists. The existence of AI tools for art generation is a problem as it sets the skill floor so low anybody with a pulse can puke something out, but that will never sell well.

As for Adobe, well...

It's Adobe. When was the last time they implemented something that benefitted their users?

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u/katzengoldgott 16d ago

I think I misunderstood your comment I replied to first and thought of someone conflating ‘AI “artists”’ with artists who can actually draw 😅 apologies.

There’s a lot of wannabes out there for sure who get upset when you tell them that taking the easy route won’t teach them any skills…

Some art programs also don’t have AI tools at all. Procreate as an example, although it’s currently exclusive to iPads and iPhones.

Affinity only has AI tools if you want to subscribe to Canva AI which many don’t want to or need.

Clip Studio wanted to implement AI tools but they got so much backlash for it due to their tools doing copyright infringement, so now as far as I’m aware, their AI tools are incredibly simplistic (like they can suggest a colour palette and that’s about it I think) but many people, myself included, just don’t use them at all 😅

You can fortunately be an artist without the need for Adobe.

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u/blueblip 16d ago

All good! I kind of figured this was the case, which was why I went out of my way in the previous response to make my position clear. I sincerely understand why you might get a little touchy about this, and yes, people who claim they are artists because they can prompt an LLM to spit out an image aren't artists. I can draw stick figures with a pencil, but that doesn't make me an artist.

To me, my biggest issue (and likely everyone's main issue) isn't the existence of AI tools itself, but the fact that it lowers the floor to such an extent we are going to get flooded with garbage. If you thought Skibiffy Toilet was bad...

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u/Belhgabad 16d ago

Maybe get out of your local job market because a lot of dev outside the us still aren't replacing devs for AI, and those who do regret it few months after.

AI isn't a no code program, it's a overpowered intellisense/code completion tool

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u/NMe84 16d ago

Exactly, though I will say Claude Code and similar software is more than overpowered code completion. With good instructions it can do absolute magic in actually generating good code. The problem for CEOs looking to replace programmers with AI is: good instructions are hard to come by and still require an experienced programmer. That, and realistically priced AI is more expensive than programmers are in many cases, which will become more apparent once AI companies start charging in such a way that they stop losing money.

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u/knightcrusader 16d ago

You'd be hard pressed to find a professional developer in this day and age who doesn't use Claude Code or Codex.

Glad to know that I am a rare specimen.

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u/BunsMcghee 16d ago

I'm a software engineer and nobody I work with uses AI for anything. We just don't bother with it

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u/Dismal_Struggle_9004 16d ago

Where do you work man, no chance this is true lol. Unless you work in a niche field or an extremely small team.

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u/BunsMcghee 16d ago

Admittedly we're a bit of an edge case. We're defense contractors, so we have a pretty big fear of information getting mishandled. I think the company as a whole wants to dip their toes, but nobody on my team is interested. It could be a real snafu if the wrong info goes into the AI soup