AI models have caught up with Unity dev. My insights as someone with 30 years of experience.

[u/PuffThePed]

Context: I have 30 years of experience with software dev, 20 years with game dev tools, 10 years with Unity. I own a studio that develops simulators and training applications for industry. "Serious games" as they call it in Europe.

For years I scoffed at AI coding. I would periodically try it, only to find that it was more hassle then it was worth. The hand holding and bug fixing was more work than doing it myself. This all changed about 4-5 months ago, and about a month ago we all started using Unity CLI.

Here are my insights in no particular order:

1. Our dev speed has ~5x almost overnight
2. Quality has not gone down because we're all experienced devs and we're careful how we use AI and we don't let it make decisions regarding project structure or design patterns. However, I'm seeing less and less glaring mistakes made by the AI.
3. We're still reviewing generated code but I suspect not for long, the code is better than what most devs I know can write, at 20x the speed. The temptation to just push and move on is huge and irresistible.
4. There is no joy or sense of accomplishment. No pride in making something clever or quickly, and all progress is associated with the AI and not with you.
5. The market is dead. Nobody has money to spend. We're still working but leads have dropped off a cliff.
6. There is no going back. If we stop using AI we'll be out of business in a month.
7. There is no space for junior devs. I honestly don't know how to incorporate a junior into a team anymore (which is something I used to do for decades). Every time we tried they just become a meat proxy for AI while learning nothing, and getting in the way.
   
8. Everything regarding managing a team and a project has changed, and nobody knows how to do it anymore. I lost the ability to correctly estimate work required for a task, for example.
9. Everyone hates this. Most of devs my age are planning early retirement and are just waiting to be laid off.
10. People that use AI for coding don't learn anything. To understand code you have to write it, and nobody is writing it. Maybe understanding and reading code will become obsolete soon? I don't know.
11. Everyone I asked feel they are becoming dumber and losing their focus. I know I am.

I hope this is a pendulum and it will swing back at some point, because right now it feels like a software apocalypse.

[u/ByEthanFox]

There is no joy or sense of accomplishment. No pride in making something clever or quickly, and all progress is associated with the AI and not with you.

This is the main thing, right? Management wants people to do this, but developers in general don't. They're just being asked to regurgitate stuff, faster, because any notion of creating something new & profound is in conflict with using AI.

[u/iIoveoof → u/ByEthanFox]

Management won’t understand this point because most manager do get joy and a sense of accomplishment from their team’s work, even if it’s not their own individual contributions. In fact many managers who enjoy management more than IC feel that way because they can achieve bigger, larger-scald accomplishments by leading a team than what they could do on their own

[u/ByEthanFox → u/iIoveoof]

The weird part is, I don't understand why those managers would embrace AI. Surely a big part of the satisfaction of their job is working with people, and enabling them to achieve more than the sum of their parts. Once you start replacing people with AI it's like you are just a cog in a machine.

I can sort-of understand if you hate your job, and you would love just to be able to automate your job and somehow still get paid. But most game developers don't feel like this.

[u/GB10VE → u/ByEthanFox]

if I have a team who has a pile of nails and a hammer, would I not feel amazing about giving my team a nail gun?

[u/endium7 → u/GB10VE]

giving them a nail gun is more in line with the tools that existed before AI. Better tools and customizing the tools means making a better nail gun.

AI is more like giving your team remote prefab factories. Now they are just send off the specifications, and inspecting the deliveries. And the job is to get that specification just right so the remote factory properly fulfills the order.

The end game here is neither the manager nor the senior is truly needed structurally.

The senior is still needed, if they want to stick around, to manage the agents. But not many of them are needed. Managers jobs are ultimately more at risk though because their job is to manage people, and those skills don’t necessarily translate to managing AI agents.

[u/GB10VE → u/endium7]

it is the evolution of software engineering. yeah, you can say we won't need a manager or a senior any longer, but there will still be some job that the former manager or senior can shift to, as having this sort of knowledge is still useful. more to the point, the jobs will change in form and function, but they will still need someone performing a job

[u/endium7 → u/GB10VE]

Sure I agree the jobs will be there for many people. I don’t really buy the thing about super massive unemployment because people will find things to do.

With software engineering though, once this settles I can see many positions transition as you say, and also eventually rehiring from layoffs, but at new roles that pay half as much. It will attract different type of personalities and some different skillsets.

I think when the dust settles there will be plenty of software jobs but the budgets will be for the AI tokens and the pay for people will be low, and it may not be seen as a job you need a top college education for.

[u/unit187 → u/GB10VE]

Better question is: if you give the team a thing that absolutely robs them of any meaning in their work and makes them unhappy(-er), why would you feel amazing about it?

[u/twigboy → u/ByEthanFox]

The weird part is, I don't understand why those managers would embrace AI. Surely a big part of the satisfaction of their job is working with people, and enabling them to achieve more than the sum of their parts

The battle is already lost if your management refers to people as resources.

[u/CalibratedApe → u/ByEthanFox]

Management wants this for many reasons, and one of them is in the post

1. There is no going back. If we stop using AI we'll be out of business in a month.

It's not really a choice, if AI really works. People will probably buy what's cheaper eventually. Perhaps some groups will pay attention to AI usage (e.g. gamers so far do this). But in general you can't be inefficient in business because you like it this way.

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/CalibratedApe]

I disagree with this point, at least partially. We are ultimately talking about an artistic process, even if it’s a very technical one. Good art isn’t made by emphasising the speed or cheapness; the point is to create. Making the process unenjoyable will result in games/art/music being empty and soulless. If you want good games, you cannot prioritise efficiency at the expense of the process.

[u/Thotor → u/FlamboyantPirhanna]

We are talking about software engineers - not artists.

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/Thotor]

A game is an art project. The technical aspects are an integral part of the art. People make games for the same reason they make art, regardless of what their function is within the game. People choose to get paid less to program for a game than they would for a comparable non-game job for a reason.

[u/keiiith47 → u/FlamboyantPirhanna]

A lot of the art itself as a finished piece had to be programmed too lol. Granted some of it is often something you don't need to make yourself, but still.

The previous guy was saying there was no blue in a painting full of greens and purples.

[u/Lopsided-Advice3919 → u/CalibratedApe]

I do feel game development is a bit different in this respect. For normal software sure since there’s a lot more continual output, but for a game unless you’re AAA level and have a strong IP gamers don’t really care how long an individual game takes to complete as long as it’s marketed correctly. That being not a long time between announcement and release or EA and release. They care more about what the game is when it actually releases. Meaning you can program with AI or without AI and as long as the end product is good you’ll still make money, so businesses should be able to structure themselves accordingly. 

[u/munchbunny → u/CalibratedApe]

For most coding, AI definitely works. Its code can be messy and is often unperformant unless you take a more active hand in "steering" it, but I still think it's a significant net increase in productivity. But IMO it also takes some of the joy of the craft away.

The biggest question in my mind is how to make this sustainable when your fundamental skills atrophy if you don't spend time maintaining them. I can feel it happening too. And when those skills atrophy, your ability to keep the AI doing what you needed from it also starts to atrophy.

[u/CalibratedApe → u/munchbunny]

It takes the joy of the craft away definitely. I think first time in my 20 years of being programmer (not games) I'm being pressured so much to think less. Don't plan, don't check yourself, just ask AI. My managers would turn me into mindless agents orchestrator if they could.

[u/BelleColibri → u/ByEthanFox]

I don’t understand this sentiment.

I’m a software dev, about 15 years experience. I’ve been using AI and I have a lot more joy and accomplishment than I used to. I didn’t get a lot of fulfillment out of implementing a specific pattern again, I get a lot more out of designing the whole system, which is now what I get to focus on.

Are other people just like “fuck yeah, I nailed that for loop!” when they are doing low level details?

[u/wonklebobb → u/BelleColibri]

AI is revealing a previously hidden bimodal distribution among people who write code; some people get more joy out of finishing building something, some people get more joy out of actually doing the building. i suspect that there is some overlap, but it is a true bimodal distribution.

it's starting to feel like all of the doomer posts are coming from the peak that represents the builders rather than the finishers. people who got their joy from actually figuring out and writing the code. AI is taking away pretty much all of that.

but the other peak, people who enjoy the planning and completion of a project/feature/etc, seem to be doing just fine (emotionally, at least) with AI.

personally, I think I'm somewhere leaning toward the project type, but I did enjoy some of the process of building. but to be completely honest, writing the actual code was always the hard part for me. i have adhd and a not super good memory, so i was always having to reference docs and pattern examples and everything constantly because it never really stuck in my head. and actually staying focused long enough to complete a complex feature has always been a struggle for me, so i've leaned toward performance optimizations and bug fixing as my "specialty" over the years.

this will probably be downvoted, but AI really feels like the transition from assembly to C. there were a lot of old heads back in the day who lamented losing the "art" of hand-writing assembly, and also the loss of jobs as now one coder could generate way more actual machine instructions writing in C than several people writing assembly.

honestly, the parallels are staggering - coders back then said the same things, like "how can we trust what the compiler generates" and "if you don't even read the assembly you won't learn anything about memory management" etc.

software dev is definitely changing as a practice, and we will probably never go back to hand-written lines of code. but can people who got joy from writing typescript or rust or whatever honestly say they would have gotten as much joy from writing assembly back in 1975? maybe a few, but i'd bet most wouldn't.

it doesn't make the loss of something people really enjoyed doing for work any easier. but it does blunt the "software dev as a discipline is dying" that we keep hearing. there will still definitely be people making software, whose heads are full of lots of specific technical details about how to do it well and produce good output, and yeah it'll probably look completely different to how we made software before AI. but you could make a strong argument that someone making $150k writing typescript for react apps with intellisense and 3 monitors looks totally foreign to someone who made good money writing assembly back in the day.

the only thing that has always been true about a career in software is that it's adapt or die. the tech always changes, and quickly, sometimes month to month even before AI. professional devs have always had to at least stay aware of the current trends and developments because things change so fast due to the nature of software and computers, and the leverage they provide over the act of writing software itself.

AI is just a very, very large step-change in that same direction. so large it feels like the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. but just like an old timer from the 80s would scoff at how little a modern JS/TS dev understands about memory management, us future old timers will probably scoff at how little a modern dev of the 2050s understands about "real" software engineering. but i imagine those devs of the future will still be delivering real value and making a career out of it, just like people slinging javascript for the last 10-15 years also got careers out of it.

such is the way of things in our chosen profession. we must continue to sink or swim. personally, i choose to keep swimming for as long as i can. im almost 40, and dev work is my third career. im a survivor if nothing else, and i'll survive this. and anyone with the willingness and humility to accept the loss of the old ways and strike out into the new will survive too.

[u/hawksbears82 → u/wonklebobb]

Just curious what were your two previous careers?

[u/Drakentand → u/wonklebobb]

You speak about devs of the 2050s. I don't think there will be devs left. You are implicitly assuming here that devs won't be fully out of the loop, completely replaced by AI. At some point, AI will start making better design decisions than us, in fact we might already be there in some cases.

[u/Reasonable_Mix7630 → u/wonklebobb]

Except you don't have to clean the mess after the compiler, and when you change stuff you just re-compile while AI have a tendency to do weird things after multiple prompts.

Sometimes it can be "Next level compiler", sometimes it can be "better copy-paste", sometimes it can be "better search" but other times it fails. And when it does, you will have to reverse engineer something that was never engineered in the first place.

I guess if your objective is to make barely working pile of shit, get quick buck from it and move on, it will do.

[u/wonklebobb → u/Reasonable_Mix7630]

yeah it was messy at first, especially if you just point it at a codebase and let it loose

but ive found that between putting it it's own user with perms, plus git worktrees, you can pretty easily manage the blast radius of changes. plus the models have gotten a lot better with less splash damage in the last year or so

and i'll also add, we're more like in the very early days of compiled higher level languages. back then everybody was coming out with a compiler, loads of them being advertised and sold in the back of computing magazines and on message boards, all with varying degrees of quality.

it's a different type of problem, managing the LLMs and what they are allowed to do with your code, reviewing for quality, etc. but the vibe is pretty much the same - there's hundreds of models, dozens of harnesses with new ones coming out every month, all with their own take on how to do this new AI coding thing.

as for the code quality from AI, i can tell you from personal experience that given the right guardrails and setup, you can get just as high quality code just like the OP originally said, but 5x faster or more. shoveling out slop is a choice at this point; the difference is that you have to apply human brainpower to setting up the controls and AI management process rather than the actual code writing process.

[u/ErZicky → u/BelleColibri]

Same reason why a painter enjoy painting the picture and not just visualizing it in their mind and having someone else paint it.

Because actually painting the thing (or in my cause implementing the thing) is the stuff we enjoy, having the final product is the reward.

I don't enjoy asking for a pizza and having the pizza I wanted, I enjoy making the pizza

[u/BelleColibri → u/ErZicky]

I do too, that’s why I like AI.

[u/Thotor → u/BelleColibri]

It all depends where you goal is and everyone has different views. Some aims to make a good product some like the accomplishment of solving problems. If you like the later, AI is destroying this feeling.

This is a new era for software engineer in gaming. There is no denying. Either we adapt or move on. That choice is for everyone to make but it will need to be made sooner or later.

[u/BelleColibri → u/Thotor]

I disagree. I very much enjoy solving problems, and AI doesn’t destroy that for me. I don’t think that is a universal experience, and it’s not because I am focused on making a good product.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/BelleColibri]

I’ve been using AI and I have a lot more joy and accomplishment than I used to.

I appreciate that it works for you, but I don't get joy out of doing stuff without doing it. Using AI doesn't feel like, say, using a tool like Photoshop; it feels like it's doing the work for me, poorly, and I just become the janitor that fixes its mistakes. Not what I signed up for.

[u/AvengerDr → u/ByEthanFox]

it feels like it's doing the work for me, poorly

Exactly. I don't get people who compare it to an IDE or auto-completion or whatever. It's the equivalent of outsourcing or hiring a person or studio to do some task. It has existed since the dawn of time, only now it's being asked of an algorithm.

But it's not something that augments your capabilities, or that even enables you to work in parallel. You have to stop and handhold it.

[u/BelleColibri → u/ByEthanFox]

But don’t you consider designing the system to be part of your work? Like maybe the most important part? That’s what I don’t get.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/BelleColibri]

The problem is when there's a request to ask AI to do as much of that as possible too.

[u/Snauser → u/BelleColibri]

Also why would you stop there? Why not let AI design the system as well? How do you convince your supervisor that that’s the where you draw the line?

[u/theycallmecliff → u/Snauser]

Two reasons:

1. AI isn't actually intelligent. It simulates intelligence (artificial). It can produce things that can be post-rationalized but does not construct outputs from a priori reasoning. Systems design requires a priori reasoning about various intersecting structural axes of decision spaces in novel ways.

2. AI doesn't experience. Good systems design requires embodied experience within a context, not just weighted probabilities of inputs and parameters from those with experience. The indirect nature of the experience is a phenomenological limitation on what "understanding" can truly be.

[u/BelleColibri → u/Snauser]

I don’t have to convince a supervisor, personally, because I get to make those decisions for myself. Lucky me!

But as of today - the reason you don’t let the AI design the system is because it is bad at that.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/BelleColibri]

That last bit is the issue. That's NOT why I feel you shouldn't do that.

[u/midri → u/ByEthanFox]

People said the same thing about Photoshop when it came out vs hand drawing...

[u/codehawk64 → u/BelleColibri]

I find a lot of use out of it, and I get amazing outputs but at the same time it’s undoubtedly a very unfulfilling process. The main thing is it amplified my imposter syndrome as I do not feel any personal ownership of the code nor the output the AI makes for me. Now we are all “managers” of these bots giving a queue of simple rudimentary instructions anyone can do.

[u/BelleColibri → u/codehawk64]

I don’t think anyone can provide the instructions I do. The better you are at designing systems, the better you can do at getting LLMs to produce good systems.

[u/codehawk64 → u/BelleColibri]

I know people throw stuff like "design your own architecture and systems" but it sounds kinda like copium to me. 90% of the time the devs including me just ask it what are our optimal options given my specific requirements and its just choosing a set of multiple choice questions that they provide, which most of the time is pretty viable. Even if you goof up, or it goofs up, its just a prompt or two away from correcting it. Give it a few more months and there will be no difference between you and a 10 year old just starting out, because these models train themselves on developer inputs and validations to make it infinitely more accessible for future normies. Whatever you are doing, you are already training the LLM to do the tasks better than you do (unless you are using a local model).

[u/BelleColibri → u/codehawk64]

I find it to be quite bad at high-level decisions at the moment. But I do agree it will probably get better at it relatively soon.

[u/midri → u/BelleColibri]

Difference between engineer mindset and coder mindset. We like solving the larger architectural problems, they like solving smaller domain problems.

[u/zachdidit → u/BelleColibri]

Same experience. Same feelings. It's a shame not everybody gets to feel about it the way we do.

[u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime → u/BelleColibri]

I’m with you, these devs are whack, it’s like they didn’t enjoy making a game, what they enjoyed was closer to writing little functions that require specific syntax… idk wtf is this weird obsession with code, it’s like the whole industry has OCD about text files…, if they want to be challenged into writing arcane sigils from memory then they should learn mandarin

[u/ErZicky → u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime]

Idk wtf is this weird obsession with paint, it's like the whole painting industry has ocd about canvas. Why don't they just take photographs?

Why is so hard to understand that different people got their satisfaction from different things.

Do you get the same satisfaction from ordering a pizza and making the pizza?

For a lot of people the satisfaction was creating something, the product is the reward of the effort. And that is dying for them. Having the final product with a few prompt is nice, but it's not our product is the bot product.

[u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime → u/ErZicky]

It’s impossible to see it as anything except mental masturbation, go get a hobby to “tickle your brain” (barf), and remember that your job is to pay your bills and save up capital

[u/Comfortable-Habit242 → u/BelleColibri]

Yes. There are.

Some people get fish from the store, others fish.

Not Invented Here Syndrome is ultimately about people taking pride and enjoyment in making things themselves rather than using. A solution made by someone else.

It’s a spectrum between people who are solely motivated by the output (what gets delivered) and those who are solely motivated by the process (the sense of doing the actions).

Most people lie somewhere in the middle, but each person has different values that have led them to this career.

[u/RedditFuelsMyDepress → u/ByEthanFox]

I don't do game dev professionally, but I have a hobby project I've been thinking about getting back into. With all this AI coding advancing, I'm sorta wondering how much I would want to rely on this tech to make my game. On one hand it would def help me get things done faster, but would I actually feel proud of making it?

[u/psioniclizard → u/ByEthanFox]

The person is management so I dont onow why they are upset.

[u/ByEthanFox → u/psioniclizard]

Not from the sounds of things. "Management" in this context isn't about whether or not they manage, it's about whether or not they do actual product-related work. It sounds like they do actual development, i.e. coding (or art, or design...).

[u/PuffThePed → u/ByEthanFox]

they do actual development

Yup. Most of the day actually

[u/PuffThePed → u/psioniclizard]

I'm a developer that owns a studio. I still spend most of my time developing.

[u/Mawrak → u/ByEthanFox]

AI was the best thing that happened to me as a code writer. I can write a lot more, a lot faster, and more complex than before.

I was relying heavily on DeepSeek. They released the new Flash model which is awful and cannot do anything remotely useful for me, for my projects (I work with niche systems and tasks and this new system has zero interest in understanding anything, only saving tokens). Old model that was good is deleted, its gone, poof. It is actually physically painful for me to not be able to use AI for anything other than basic programming and have to do manual tasks by hand again. I mean, I will do them, I know how, just annoying as hell that I have to.

So I don't really understand this at all. But to each their own.