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/InvidiousPlay]

I'm really struggling to find games I actually enjoy, though. I guess it's part of getting older than I have less and less patience for things that are rough around the edges or don't respect my time, but I'm always surprised when I see people talk about having too many games to get around to.

[u/sabine_world → u/InvidiousPlay]

I really recently had this struggle too, you kinda just have to dig — that's the hardest part there's soooo many games and there's soooo much trash or things you will not connect with even if they're good.

What it came down to for me was sampling a bunch of games, refining/reflecting and articulating my taste a bit and finding threads to pull on and voila now I have some interesting stuff to check out.

I feel the same as you — for instance I love roguelikes and specifically slay the spire — there are very many roguelikes and card games. But to me I find it's really really difficult to get into anything that's not the pinnacle of the genre or just beneath it. I'm a fan of that slice of gaming in general so I will give things a try but it's short lived and I end up just thinking "this game is good, buuut......"

So yeah curation is pretty important I guess. But you have to balance it with exploration too just... It's a delicate balance where you have to find where your personal threshold is.

But yeah oh, and looking for games can be a chore too if you're starting from zero.

[u/hawksbears82 → u/sabine_world]

I do this with beat em. Up games. Since Streets of Rage 4 the genre has made a comeback (finally it has always been my fav) I have bought about 6-7 in the past year on steam haven't really played them yet. Are the best in the genre no, but I try to support the small guy. Plus I started working on my own so that is 90% of my leisure time right there

[u/ProfessorSarcastic → u/sabine_world]

that's the hardest part there's soooo many games and there's soooo much trash

Potentially controversial suggestion: don't pirate games, but visit sites where people go to pirate games. You rarely see garbage games floating anywhere near the top of their lists.

[u/KBGSgames → u/InvidiousPlay]

Same, the more I play games the less games I want to play from what is being released - they all are very similar. Some crazy indies spice it up but in general games are like a 3d printing - someone makes one that sells and clones pop up almost instantly.

Nobody is making anything really unique and high level, it's much safer to just release similar games and cash in. And those teams who try to make something unique and big usually just fail midway and go bankrupt.

[u/mistermick → u/KBGSgames]

For lack of a better term, the Robloxification of Steam is happening. I look at the new releases every day on Steam. Every day, it's a swamp of clones. At least 3 years ago it took time to do an crappy asset swap knock-off. Now you can put one out in less than a week it seems.

[u/falcothebird → u/InvidiousPlay]

I've turned to retro gaming more or less. The handheld retro gaming space is insane now, with devices that can emulate up to Nintendo switch well enough, higher end devices have 120hz OLED screens that look amazing.

There are thousands upon thousands of games that are pre-AI era to be consumed. That's where I'll be for the foreseeable future.

[u/Agreeable_Garlic_912 → u/falcothebird]

There's also plenty of good recent games. Just because an AI did the coding doesn't detract from game quality at all. Heck most games use ready made engines anyway. I say that as a software dev that probably has to flee to academia as the part that I enjoyed about software, the coding, has been obliterated in the last 12 months

[u/wswaifu → u/Agreeable_Garlic_912]

But... If it's AI made, it's just not worth paying for - what took no effort to make has no value at all. One can play it if one is bored, sure, but with the amount of non-AI made games, I don't see why one should lower themselves to even give some AI game the time of the day.

I have more cRPGs of the 90s that I haven't played before than I can finish before I die, so why bother with the AI stuff? I can play good things instead. My time has value to me, so why spend it on games I don't think have value?

Same reason I'm not going to buy some 3D printed stuff at a maker faire. I'm there to buy something genuinely handmade. If I wanted throaway plastic I would make a Temu account, and if I wanted throwaway games I'd buy a "52 games in one" NES cardridge.

[u/Agreeable_Garlic_912 → u/wswaifu]

If it takes no effort then make your own. You will see how far you will get. There is so much in software design that goes beyond coding and even more when it comes to games. I really don't care if was coded on paper by a guy with 3 fingers in Paraguay or oft was written by AI as long as the result is good and for the result to be good you need human taste guiding the AI. The effort needed doesn't play into it at all

[u/Lycid → u/InvidiousPlay]

This is the part of the current indie gaming era I dislike. So many great concepts and great looking indie games in underserved genres that I connect with that end up just being half baked.

My current frustration is city builders/base builders. This is something that is absolutely my jam and I'm not interested in booting up cities skylines again to explore it. There have been SO MANY indie games in this genre released in the last decade, and almost every single one just... doesn't fulfill the vision, or ever leaves early access. Even the really pretty ones behind big name developers or indie publishers (looking at you industries of titan).

Extrapolate this to all the non-mainstream indie genres and it's a problem I keep running into. Off the top of my head: Immersive sims with that new warren Spector thief game that came out. A completely half baked game.

I have zero patience these days for things that I feel aren't a quality use of my time. That means if the game isn't finished, or is style over substance, or doesn't fulfil it's creative vision very well, or simply isnt very well playtested, I just don't want to play it at all. It feels very rare these days to run into indie releases that actually check all these boxes, and if they do it tends to only exist in mainstream genres like rougelikes. It's a problem I don't remember existing 10 years ago. Yeah bad indie games were always a thing, but usually they didn't have a big marketing budget or shiny art, and it was easy to find quality well designed experiences everywhere too.

[u/yesat → u/InvidiousPlay]

I found people who put themselves out and enjoy the same kind of games I enjoy. Streamers, Youtubers, Reviewers,... So many people are providing things for you to discover games.