"The 'AI Stigma' is real and severely punishes developers": A new study shows how much using AI in games hurts sales, and the numbers are hard to believe

Comments

• artyom@piefed.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  AI stigma seems to hit competent developers with a lot to lose the hardest

  No. Competent developers aren’t using AI.

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• Malgas@beehaw.org ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  “The ‘excrement stigma’ is real and severely punishes sandwich shops.” A new study shows how much using excrement in sandwiches hurts sales…

  I dunno, guys, have your maybe considered not serving shit sandwiches? But no, I guess “try to use it in ways your customers won’t notice” is the only way forward.

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  • lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Perfect analogy.

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• supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Yes I have a stigma against idiots who are terminally obsessed with AI, I have it because the only way to stop people ruining everything with AI is endless shame.

  It is the same with all forms of fascism.

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  • lyralycan@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Social exclusion is evolutionarily the prime way to handle people with problematic tendencies.

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• HairyTeeth@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think we all hoped AI would mean more convincing worlds and characters, what we got is effectively the opposite with a nice side dish of job losses and environmental catastrophe.

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• Xenny@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Games are already rushed and broken on release. Saying you used AI is like saying you rushed faster and broke even more than we thought possible.

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• vane@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You can buy asset packs for couple bucks or even download some for free. Price for freelance from poor country on fiverr or upwork are pennies. The more I think about making game the more I’m convinced to not use AI for it. If you’re big studio and you can’t afford $10-50k for graphic placeholders but you can afford to delegate people to make a AI data pipeline and then spend $100k + on interference than you’re idiots and your company deserves to die.

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• ILikeTraaaains@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Basically a big studio can hire more people, a solo dev or a very small studio cannot do it, so that’s why people judge harsher the usage of AI on big devs.

  Personally I also judge on which areas is used, for a creative part (story, music, art) for me is a big no-no. For development it depends on how it was used, if as a tool to help in code reviews or menial tasks that are easy automated I won’t care as much as if there are vibecoded parts.

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• lvxferre@mander.xyz ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It was discovered that inexperienced developers with no marketing budget, who likely turned to AI simply because of a lack of other resources, saw hardly any negative impact on sales despite the AI disclosure. These games were almost certainly going to struggle even without the use of AI.

  It’s a different story for the more established studios with an existing following and previous titles. Game Oracle found that the use of AI by these studios resulted in a significant 40% to 60% drop in sales.

  This actually makes sense. People are willing to turn a blind eye to more and larger flaws in a game if they know it comes from a small indie developer with barely any experience, than if it’s coming from a well-established studio.

  The matter here is what they’re identifying. I see three possibilities:

  1. people checking for AI disclosures, and avoiding games with them;
  2. AI output being slop and making a subpar game, something along the lines of Burton’s suggestion;
  3. the sort of dev who uses AI is likely to make crappy games, even without it.

  #1 is irrationally brushed off by the author, but I don’t think it should. #2 and #3 are lumped together in Burton’s “advice” (that boils down to “if people complain about you adding shit to your sandwich, add a bit less, also if you’re pouring shit in the sandwich odds are the meat is rotten too”), but they’re two different beasts — one is about the tech yielding a worse product, and the other about the developers themselves being bad.

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• Bieren@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Did anyone ever ask the AI if it wants to create game or play games?

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• Switorik@sh.itjust.works ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The simple solution would be to stop using it? It’s going to hurt us in the short and long term if we don’t stop.

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  • Zahille7@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But that requires too much work! And everyone knows taking part in society and being a human is easy and requires no work at all! /S

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• Hiro8811@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Good, good. That makes me happy.

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• OwOarchist@pawb.social ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  *The AI Stigma is real and severely punishes “”“developers”“”.

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