I was writing this out on my local [email protected] and realised I was basically making a patient gamers post, so here’s a copy and paste:
Despite everything you might read from gaming journos about corporate greed destroying the gaming industry I still think it’s an amazing time to be into video games. I’m absolutely spoiled for choice with games to play and I think it’s just down to not caring about online multiplayer or getting caught up in marketing hype.
You don’t have to pay through the nose to buy a fancy machine to play half-finished blockbusters, there are decades of classics that you can still play. Borrow a friend’s old console and play some old games-of-the-year, find some random classics on Humble Bundle or GOG, see what random freebies I’ve posted in [email protected], stick an emulator on your phone or find one that runs in a web browser.
Example: I played Metroid Prime after seeing a Lemmy post talking about. I could either:
- Dig out a GameCube or buy a Wii on eBay for £5 and find a copy of the game at CEX if I fancy the retro experience
- Buy the remastered Switch version if I fancied splashing out
- Just pirate a ROM if I feel rebellious
- Dump my own ROM and play it on PrimeHack if I feel like tinkering
This is just one example of a great game that passed me by, there are thousands of others out there. We have a crazy amount of choice not only of what to play but how we choose to play it. The bittersweet part is that this could all change so enjoy it while you can!
You’re not wrong about a lot of these points but I think it’s worth pointing out that each AI application will basically be a separate tool.
For texture work, these tools will be used immediately and probably only have beneficial effects. It will even give premade assets a nice feel AND you can use AI to turn one hand-made texture into a large amount of unique assets. Which helps indies by avoiding the copy/paste feel of their assets. Same is true of models but will take more time for that.
As for voices, what you said is true. A bad human voice is still mostly better than AI. However if you have a lot of dialog or just want to play test, the AI voices are great for that before you ask a human to do the lines.
And as for story and script dialog, AI is already pretty good at this but the application is important. Games that overuse AI to write their story or characters will stand out as really bad. But when used correctly, AI can change generic filler into interesting plot. Or make people say unique things every time you see them. Combine that with voice generation once it’s good and we’re in for some very cool applications.
Yeah, I agree about the textures, but I think you’re overestimating the existing LLMs. I think folks are already starting to recognize the style of the current LLMs and finding it off-putting. I think that’s only going to increase as people try to apply them in even more places.