[krapp]

If AI works well enough that just a vague prompt leads it to spit out a professional, compelling and creative game with assets, VO, music, coherent level and production design, and everything else that goes into successful modern games... companies are going to own that and keep that on lockdown, because it's essentially a free money machine.

You won't have a "game making AI" that isn't already owned by big media companies, crippled and handicapped, and expensive as hell. You won't legally be allowed to compete against them. ChatGPT is never going to do that. That isn't how capitalism works.

[majormajor]

Nah, the standard will just change.

A "AAA game" will be the ones that have that extra it whether that's something resulting from human curation (the person firing off prompts who knows how to tune them and knows what other people want) or style (the person assembling things to be more cohesive) or editing (the person making sure the AI puts out an absolutely amazing story instead of a meh one) or whatever.

Basically, look at what a AAA game was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago compared to today, and then extrapolate the other direction. ;) The person who wanted games with the quality of 30 years ago has countless options, yet people still pay for the ones they think are the creme of the crop.

[johnnyanmac]

as a nitpick, you can argue there was no "AAA title" in 1994. Games like MGS2, FF7, and RE2 in '97/'98 is where we commonly consider to be the beginning of the moniker for "AAA".

But yeah, GTA 3 was over 20 years ago. A bit sad that it's still non-trivial to make a game that scope as one person, mostly because 480p assets and fixed lighting pipelines won't cut it anymore (regardless of scope).

[majormajor]

Not something like 1994's Wing Commander or other PC games with Hollywood actors and cutscenes?

I'm not super invested in the nomenclature but it's odd to me that those are all Playstation games.

[ToucanLoucan]

I mean, I don't disagree in the slightest on any point! I'm just curious why anyone who isn't working in the C-suite of any large media company wants that product to exist!

[krapp]

I'm not even certain that product can exist, at least not anytime soon. But AI is in a hype cycle right now so everyone wants to jump on the gravy train.

Of course a lot of people don't want it. A lot of artists, developers and creative people want nothing to do with it, for obvious reasons. I don't want it. I think AI-driven tools only serve to commoditize and diminish human creativity. I've never seen anything generated by AI that I find interesting beyond the sense of superficial aesthetic or vibe. But I'd never prefer it over something made by a human being.

But no one cares what the muggles think, and criticizing AI right now gets you denounced as a crank in much the same way as being an anti-vaxxer or flat-earther. There's nothing to be done but hope the fever breaks before too much damage is done to the world.