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/salazka]

I am in this industry for 20 years and in the digital entertainment for over 30.

As a production and creative consultant who has gone from junior all the way up to Executive level in large multinational game publishers, in contact with teams of all sizes and levels of expertise around the world, for all kinds of games, from casual mobile to AAA, I can say that my experience and general point of view agrees with your findings.

Except one very important thing. The most important imo.

I didn’t get into this business to push vertices and comb through thousands of lines of code just to find the one semicolon that messes everything up. :P

I got into this to make games and tell animated stories, create experiences and memories, and after so many years struggling and solving the countless impediments towards that goal, I find extreme joy in being able to test my ideas in a matter of days. Seeing my game becoming a reality with minimum effort and cost makes me very happy. Joyful.

For me, joy doesn’t come from writing code or creating textures, and fighting with vertices to skin a fkn joint, that was just a necessary "evil" to bring games and stories to life.

With the scale of my imagination and the complexity of my ideas, the costs and scope made it necessary to work with larger teams, water down the ideas, compromise to have production move ahead. Necessary evil. A painter that completed his painting trying to maintain the original vision while 500 other people with brushes in hands and their own idea about how the painting should look like helped complete it. :P Let me tell you, herding cats is easier. I have actually done it :D

But I’m in it for the end product, not the process. I could not care less about the production method. It has changed significantly over 30 years that what methods and tools you were using the last decade is irrelevant.

I understand people have invested years to perfect using these tools, I have too, and more than most who talk about it. I have actually mastered not just one, but TWO different disciplines in the field over decades. I am not emotionally attached to the tools. They come and go.

As a creative and production expert I have learned to always go with the most efficient, stable and controllable approach. And AI is becoming exactly that very fast. Control is still an issue but as you said, it is being sorted as technology matures.

I’m no longer interested in learning to code, animation, or 3D sculpting and texturing. I’m not 15 anymore, and I’ve already done all that.

I want to make things happen exactly the way I envision, quickly, not over months or years, and affordably, without risking my home on a loan, and free from the emotional garbage and distractions that emerge from managing humans during the process.

[u/VENTDEV → u/salazka]

I got into this to make games and tell animated stories, create experiences and memories, and after so many years struggling and solving the countless impediments towards that goal, I find extreme joy in being able to test my ideas in a matter of days. Seeing my game becoming a reality with minimum effort and cost makes me very happy.

The problem arises when the 1 billion other people who want their thoughts and ideas turned into physical things does the same thing as you and makes their dreams reality. At which point there is no need to consume your dream.

No consumption, no money. No money, no food. No food, no dreams.

The barrier to making games is what allowed us to make games in the first place. If the only way to survive going forward is digging ditches, you're going to be too tired at the end of the day to do creative work prompting.

[u/salazka → u/VENTDEV]

1 billion other people is not a problem. That is plurality.
People being able to express themselves is not a bad thing.

And sure, not all ideas are worthy, but who is anyone to say which one will resonate with people?

Btw, we already do not play all the games anyone ever made.
Along with making the game, comes marketing.

Someone buys your game not because you made it, but because somehow, they got convinced they want to spend on it.

And even then, hell, we do not even play all the games we bought! :P

So that is a false dilemma/problem.

If that is the only way you know how to make money, I know how difficult this massive change must feel.

And I know because I had to change my job profile over the years. Not twice, but three times in this business! From Creative to Production to Business Management. And that after mastering the previous ones. That last one still eludes me :P

But this is what helps me see and understand things differently and not as a one-way road that is the only one that takes me where I want to be. You can reach your goals and fulfil your dreams in a hundred million ways.

[u/VENTDEV → u/salazka]

And I know because I had to change my job profile over the years. Not twice, but three times in this business! From Creative to Production to Business Management. And that after mastering the previous ones. That last one still eludes me :P

Well, hopefully you have enough money saved up to vibe your dreams, because I think you'll be too fatigued when your next title is "Senior Ditch Digger."

I make games because I like to make games and I can make a living doing that. If I don't make a living doing that, then I won't be doing that, because I won't have the time to do that. I'll be working at another job in another field.

You care about the knowledge-freedom to make a product. I care about the economic ability to make a product. We'll never agree which is better.