Posted by anigbrowl 3 days ago
These awards are behind the times and risk irrelevance.
What software in 2025 is written without AI help?
Every game released recently would have AI help.
For indie games in particular, that is very much not true. In fact, Steam has a 'made with AI' label, so it's not even true on that platform.
But banning using AI at all while developing the game is... obviously insane on its face. It's literally equivalent to saying "you may not use Photoshop while developing your game" or "you may not use VS Code or Zed or Cursor or Windsurf or Jetbrains while developing your game" or "you may not have a smartphone while developing your game".
Just to nitpick, AAA game developers probably don't use the editors you mentioned since they do native applications.
I work in mobile games and practically everyone is using either VSCode or some Jetbrains IDE. A few use Visual Studio but it has AI autocomplete too.
Of course you'd use Jetbrains for Android...
You need to crack open XCode only for very specific debugging tasks
If you can't use LLMs to generate placeholder graphics that don't ship in the actual game, then why can you use coding editors that let you use LLMs to generate code?
To give even an inch under these circumstances seems like suicide. Every use of LLMs, however minor, is a concession to our destruction. It gives them money, it gives them power, it normalizes them and their influence.
I find the technology fascinating. I can think of numerous use cases I'd like to explore. It is useful and it can provide value. Unfortunately it's been deployed and weaponized against us in a way that makes it unacceptable under any circumstances. The tech bros and oligarchs have poisoned the well.
I'm a programmer, and I enjoyed the sort of "craftsman" aspect of writing code, from the 1990s until... maybe last year. But it's over. Writing code manually is already the exception, not the rule. I am not an artist, and I also really do understand that artists have a more legitimate grievance (about stealing prior art) than we programmers do.
As a practical matter, though, that's irrelevant. I suspect being an "artist" working in games, movies, ads, etc will become much like coding already is: you produce some great work manually, as an example, and then tell the bots "Now do it like this ... all 100 of you."
It’s just a tool, but like any tool it can be used the right way or wrong way. We as a society are still learning which is which.
Seems like a histrionic take.
those guys worked in AAA studios and they got a 10 millions budget
how "indie" is that?
"Existing outside of the traditional publisher system, a game crafted and released by developers who are not owned or financially controlled by a major AAA/AA publisher or corporation, allowing them to create in an unrestricted environment and fully swing for the fences in realizing their vision."
In other words, "indie" means a developer-driven game independent of the establishment. It doesn't necessarily imply a low budget or the lack of professional experience.
More and more AAA games are going to have AI. Whether it’s AI content, AI dialogue, AI driven storytelling, or AI driven animation.
Having game of the year title stripped over some texture use is some next level petty BS.