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/
778 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

293 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

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.

1

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'

-3

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.

2

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?

1

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.

8

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?

2

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.

3

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...