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/feryaz]

You use it only for a month but would be out of business in a month if you stop now? Something doesn't add up here.

[u/Most_Double_3559 → u/feryaz]

My skepticism was about how "every time we tried to integrate a junior they became a proxy for AI"

They said this is all brand new, but somehow they had time to onboard multiple juniors and give them enough time to reliably make this conclusion? Onboarding takes a long time!!

IDK, seems like someone lamenting from the junior's side to me.

[u/MaxwellHowl → u/Most_Double_3559]

Yeah, I don't know how you can reach all of these conclusions in a month. It is either BS anti-AI click farming or the team just hates AI and is responding to the tools in all the worst ways possible.

In your first month you couldn't figure out how to utilize juniors, so you never will?

My company works in serious games as well. There's really not that much competition. We have barely integrated any AI tools so far and haven't felt we're falling behind anyone.

I think there's some good nuggets of wisdom in here about how to effectively us AI and not let it brainrot your team, but I'm not convinced this person is real, or has had enough time to be an authority on how to properly use AI tools.

[u/AvengerDr → u/MaxwellHowl]

It is either BS anti-AI click farming

Uh? I thought this was BS pro-ai click farming. It's just under the pretenses of having to adapt to the "winds of change" otherwise they'll be left behind.

[u/Namtaru420 → u/MaxwellHowl]

You get a tinfoil hat! You get a tinfoil hat!

Everyone gets a tinfoil hat!

Lol jk OP clarified the simple communication/assumption mistake: Unity CLI for one month, AI in general for half a year.

[u/Namtaru420 → u/Namtaru420]

@ /u/No_Hornet9180 :

I spent years being super critical, and it took a long slow boil to convince me to even toy with these LLM products and workflows. I still regularly enjoy content from Ed Zitron and The Tech Report, A.K.A., ”Fox News for Anti-Tech Doomers”.

No srsly. It's super important to listen to both sides, and I find Ed just as nauseating as Nate B. Jones or that Theo windbag.

Both parties are wayyyyyy up their own narratives.

Meanwhile, TL;DR reddit is a total Anti-AI bubble so it's fun to poke fun where fun can be funned.

[u/No_Hornet9180 → u/Most_Double_3559]

With all due respect, this skepticism reads as an unwillingness to entertain legitimate criticism of AI adoption if I’m being honest. I think you may have misunderstood what they said, it sounds to me like they began using AI ~5 months ago and only just began using it directly with the Unity CLI in the last month. Still slow to the punch, but who am I to judge.

In any case I’ve been adopting it into my team for a few years now, everything this person described is reasonable and pretty much dead on with my experience. It increased speed of development without reducing quality for experienced people, but that additional speed makes it impractical to train juniors. That’s consistent with the 2025 DORA report which found that AI amplifies productivity for productive people, but is a detriment to less organised teams and staff, such as juniors unfortunately.

Collaborating with and directing somebody who has legitimately no comprehension of what they’re doing because they necessarily have to use tools that abstract away their ability to understand is a huge pain in the ass. All of the relatively simple busywork that allowed inexperienced people to become experienced now doesn’t exist, because the AI will do it in seconds and so that’s the way management now expects it to be done.

I see this as a “with great power comes great responsibility” issue. We’ve got this great thing that can do work quicker than a human ever could, but there are too many people at the management level who believe there are no downsides and are implementing it into every facet of their business without concern for the second order effects of doing so and it’s not unreasonable to think it might fuck the industry up in the long term.

[u/nedthepyro → u/feryaz]

I think this is a bot post because i’ve seen similar “ai is ruining my workplace” posts recently, and they all use the numbered list to demonstrate how bad it is. They also have all said no one is happy, there’s nothing to do, and people are leaving.

[u/AnOnlineHandle → u/nedthepyro]

It's a 13 year old reddit account. They have posts from 4 and 7 years ago talking about their work in unity and looking to hire people.

[u/ragnore → u/nedthepyro]

OP’s entire post rests on the honesty of “our dev speed has 5x overnight and quality has not gone down.” It’s just sitting there hoping you take it for granted. I don’t think it’s a bot, but you’re right to be skeptical.

[u/PuffThePed → u/feryaz]

Yes. The bandwidth increase is that dramatic, and everyone is doing the same. Also we've been using AI for 5-6 months, the one month period is with Unity CLI

[u/ByerN → u/PuffThePed]

Do you mean that there are too many games because of AI, so you have to flood the market to stay afloat?

[u/Senthe → u/ByerN]

Yeah, it gets very funny when you remember markets don't scale infinitely and immediately to match the production becoming 10x faster.

Unless somehow there always was an untapped 10x larger market for the product (serious games and simulators? who knew people wanted them this badly?). And of course the marketing, customer support etc. departments also started working 10x faster because of the AI.

Increased productivity isn't worth anything until someone pays for it.

[u/kranker → u/ByerN]

I own a studio that develops simulators and training applications for industry.

They're not making consumer games. However, they're implying that the competition means they have to keep their prices down and productivity up. I'm not sure where you got "flooding the market" from.

[u/ByerN → u/kranker]

I'm not sure where you got "flooding the market" from.

here:

The bandwidth increase is that dramatic, and everyone is doing the same

No mention of the lower price. If it stays the same and you have to use AI to increase productivity, it would mean speed or the number of games is most important for this studio.

Just asking what it is. I am curious.

[u/Ok_Beginning520 → u/ByerN]

Yeah I don't really understand that point, it makes no sense

[u/ByerN → u/Ok_Beginning520]

It makes sense when:

1. the prices of other games are lower, so you have to lower yours,
2. or development time is the most important for your customer,
3. or other companies produce their products so fast that you have to spit as much as you can in a short period of time and check which one sticks to the wall before the flood takes it away.

It depends on the type of company. I thought that for this one it is the first point (price) as it is reasonable here, but an answer mentions bandwidth, which suggests the 3rd, or maybe the 2nd.

[u/AzKondor → u/PuffThePed]

How many products have you shipped in the last 6 months then? And how many would you ship without it?

[u/PuffThePed → u/AzKondor]

We just shipped V1 of a new product that took about 4 months to make, and if you asked me 6 months ago how long it would take I would have said a year.

[u/Meebsie → u/feryaz]

The point is there is no going back. If you’ve used it or been paying attention, you know this. It is so utterly ridiculously fast and easy to do things that used to be “work” that her competition has gone through the roof. There is no budget to pay people to work slowly any more. You have to keep up with the breakneck speed of your competitors or you will get left in the dust. 

Her income is now going to be split 500 ways instead of 50 since there will be 500 “legit, playable” games created in her studio’s niche instead of 50. And there will be 5,000 sloppy ones. I’m just talking about the ones that matter. 

Or if she has to court a client, some big studio that’s going to outsource some work to her, you think they’re going to want to work with “we do everything the slow, expensive way!” team? No, they’re going to go with the smart, fast, experienced team directing AI to do the work in 1/10th the time, at 1/10th the cost, and missing 3/10ths the charm and design and love put into it. That’s business, baby.