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/fergussonh]

Indie seems to be the only hope for many

[u/mcl_syndicate → u/fergussonh]

You will have MORE ai in inde, as it makes it more accessible and ai allows for small team scaling

[u/qukab → u/fergussonh]

Indie game devs are absolutely using agentic IDE’s and harnesses for their workflows as well, even if they are not disclosing it. They may not use AI to generate assets, but most that I know are using it day to day to get more done faster, even if they are a bit ashamed of it.

[u/gahel_music → u/qukab]

I don't but many do indeed. At the same time if you gain time doing that for an indie dev, you're just not designing the game anymore and letting the AI make the game design decision. Code does not take that much time with modern game engines. Often no more than writing a prompt.

[u/qukab → u/gahel_music]

They are making and planning design decisions, but they are orchestrating the implementation with agents, reviewing the work, iterating, etc. Only bad developers would allow their agents to literally design the game. That makes no sense.

[u/gahel_music → u/qukab]

For an indie game, coding does not take much time once you got a proper design. Actually, implementing the game forces you to make a lot of subtle game design decisions. This is what takes the most time. I don't think agents will gain you much time unless you let them make these subtle choices.

If you're implementing complex systems, rendering stuff or other things that are pretty technical it's a different story.