The automation of the industrial revolution destroyed the jobs of tailors, shoemakers, and other skilled craftsmen and artisans and replaced them with less skilled low wage factory workers.
The real tragedy though here is automation does not replace the soul that is put into handcrafted work. Before the industrial revolution, everywhere in the world people dressed dramatically differently. Regional clothing was replaced by cheap shirts made in a factory on a different side of the planet.
I think the sad reality is we know that handcrafted products are unnecessary given that they can be industrialized.
It’s not that nobody wants the hand-crafted products…it’s that mass-produced ones are sufficient in “getting the job done.” And since enough people will play/buy the “good enough” games, the artistic masterpieces will become a lot fewer and further between than they already are.
It may also enable smaller studios to increase the scope of their projects. If mid range studios can make AAA scale projects and indie studios make mid range it may enable an explosion of large auteur games.
Maybe I was not clear with my tone, since I only talked about the bad. There can be upsides.
It is a lot like procedural generation. Some games started replacing handcrafted maps with procedural ones…
Some of the magic is lost in a handcrafted map versus a procedural one. Sometimes it work though, like an initially indie exploration game like Minecraft. And at least so far, level designers are not out of a job for it.
AI cannot yet do emotional story telling, so in a game like Skyrim you may see AI voices for background NPCs, and manually recorded dialogue for characters in main questlines.
I agree with that, with the carveout being the “so far” part as this thing is moving very fast. No doubt the fist games made with this is going to suck though.
It may also enable smaller studios to increase the scope of their projects.
That’s the story of Minecraft, Rimworld, Terraria and several others. They succeeded in creating vast, replayable AI-generated games that can compete with AAA scale projects.
A lot of people forget that procedural generation is an early form of generative AI. Newer generative AI will also produce some hits and vast quantities of junk games, just like the games we currently see with procedurally generated content.
The automation of the industrial revolution destroyed the jobs of tailors, shoemakers, and other skilled craftsmen and artisans and replaced them with less skilled low wage factory workers.
The real tragedy though here is automation does not replace the soul that is put into handcrafted work. Before the industrial revolution, everywhere in the world people dressed dramatically differently. Regional clothing was replaced by cheap shirts made in a factory on a different side of the planet.
AI may not repeat history, but it may rhyme.
I think the sad reality is we know that handcrafted products are unnecessary given that they can be industrialized.
It’s not that nobody wants the hand-crafted products…it’s that mass-produced ones are sufficient in “getting the job done.” And since enough people will play/buy the “good enough” games, the artistic masterpieces will become a lot fewer and further between than they already are.
It may also enable smaller studios to increase the scope of their projects. If mid range studios can make AAA scale projects and indie studios make mid range it may enable an explosion of large auteur games.
Maybe I was not clear with my tone, since I only talked about the bad. There can be upsides.
It is a lot like procedural generation. Some games started replacing handcrafted maps with procedural ones…
Some of the magic is lost in a handcrafted map versus a procedural one. Sometimes it work though, like an initially indie exploration game like Minecraft. And at least so far, level designers are not out of a job for it.
AI cannot yet do emotional story telling, so in a game like Skyrim you may see AI voices for background NPCs, and manually recorded dialogue for characters in main questlines.
I agree with that, with the carveout being the “so far” part as this thing is moving very fast. No doubt the fist games made with this is going to suck though.
thats whats exciting indie devs willing to take risks given the tools that once required huge wads of cash and corporate backing
That’s the story of Minecraft, Rimworld, Terraria and several others. They succeeded in creating vast, replayable AI-generated games that can compete with AAA scale projects.
A lot of people forget that procedural generation is an early form of generative AI. Newer generative AI will also produce some hits and vast quantities of junk games, just like the games we currently see with procedurally generated content.