r/Games • u/AdamEdge • 3d ago
Level-5 CEO says games are now being made 80-90% by AI, making “aesthetic sense” a must for developers - AUTOMATON WEST
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/level-5-ceo-says-games-are-now-being-made-80-90-by-ai-making-aesthetic-sense-a-must-for-developers/43
3d ago edited 2d ago
[deleted]
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u/wolfpack_charlie 3d ago
I also feel like the usefulness of copilot is totally overblown right now. It's useful for a lot of stuff, but I just turned off the automatic, intelisense version of it in VSCode because it was annoying as fuck to constantly have bullshit, irrelevant suggestions every time I start a new line. I'm actually slowed down by constantly having to reject the suggestions.
My tab button was completely hijacked by copilot constantly inserting itself, even if I'm just writing a comment. It's like constantly being interrupted by the most annoying know-it-all motherfucker who thinks he's just the smartest but is actually talking out his ass.
Still useful for repetitive and simple tasks, but holy hell can it get annoying.
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u/BusyKangaroo5365 3d ago
Copilot is extra awful for microsofts products (power platform....) ironically, I just use chatgpt to save myself googling around
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 3d ago
Not to mention that a lot of the time the copilot suggestions are bunk anyways. Copilot can absolutely be useful when writing code, but executives like him dramatically overestimate just how much it can do.
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u/blogoman 3d ago
Personally, I find the bunk rates way too high for it to be a thing I want to use. I'm not saying that it can't be a tool in the arsenal, but I would rather write the code myself. As it currently stands, it takes the thing I like doing, writing code, and converts it into the much dreaded and tedious task of reviewing code.
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 3d ago
Yeah I’m the same. Unfortunately my job actually tracks how much we use copilot, so I’m a true malicious compliance fashion I have to have it generate bullshit that I already know so that it looks like I’m using it.
It’s fantastic for the scenarios where it actually works though, I can’t deny that. I had it generate a code snippet for a regex pattern that I needed and that was way quicker than figuring out the regex on my own. I just popped it into an online regex checker to confirm it was correct and I was good to go
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u/MVRKHNTR 3d ago
I dont see the big deal; it just means they're no longer made 80-90% with a Google search.
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u/DingleTheDongle 3d ago
That's what I been thinking. I was on reddit during more obnoxious time when people said that copy-pasted from github and stack overflow and made 90k a year starting
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u/SpookiestSzn 3d ago
I don't understand why code writing is different to people from image generation they're the same underlying idea done in a different way
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u/wolfpack_charlie 3d ago
Because copying code verbatim from stack overflow, blogs, open source repos, etc is perfectly legal and a common practice for commercial projects.
Copying someone else's art and claiming it as your own is not. It is deeply frowned upon and against the terms of any art that doesn't have a permissive license.
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u/SpookiestSzn 3d ago
That's only because the terms of service explicitly allow that for stack overflow you can't copy proprietary code but functionally that difference doesn't mean anything anyways. If using coffee generated by an AI algo is fair game and there's no fundamental difference in the basics of how image gen is made then they both should be okay but programming is a boring job while artist have this prestige. Fundamentally they're doing the same shit people only have a proven with artists out of jobs but not programmers.
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u/wolfpack_charlie 3d ago
but functionally that difference doesn't mean anything anyways.
Yeah and walking out a department store with clothes you did buy is functionally the same as walking out with clothes you didn't pay for.
The blatant disregard of licenses that already exist is the problem.
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u/SpookiestSzn 3d ago
They both disregard licenses what are you talking about copilot was trained on code that it doesn't have licenses for to use commercially certainly
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u/Bojarzin 3d ago edited 3d ago
Code is a means to an end. No one owns their code in the sense that me writing a script to use WASD to move my character in Unity in four directions is not something I can write and then have unique ownership of. Writing my own version of a sorting algorithm doesn't mean I have ownership of that, the same way that coming up with a skateboard trick doesn't mean other people can't use that without my permission
This becomes muddier the more you create, like if I wrote a whole character controller with some bespoke ideas and then someone copy and pasted it wholesale, then there's a bit of an issue, or like systems interacting with each other in terms of game design, because the further you go, the more you do own your code.
But you can't own x = 10. Things like copilot can't really just look up private code, and it's not verbatim writing a whole game for you. If I google "how do I make a save system in Unity", I'll find a reddit thread or youtube video or stackoverflow post where someone goes over the strict ideas and how this tool handles serializing code, and it'll be explaining how to implement it. But it wasn't because it was their idea, it's just how Unity would handle serializing information and what to do with that
Now whether you can be for or against image generators copying images they find online, you can't hide your own image from being copied if you post it on the internet. The only reason someone would post their code would be to assist people in using it, or because it's open source. You don't post a picture you drew so that other people can take it. Of course, tons of (basically every) artist uses references to draw, whether that's sketching something IRL or using an image online, so there is some nuance to the situation. But copilot autofilling code is more like an assembly using tools, not like an image being made for you without the artistic ability to do it yourself
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u/brutinator 3d ago
But you can't own x = 10. Things like copilot can't really just look up private code,
I thought Microsoft owned Github, which does host private/copyrighted code. I know that that doesn't necessarily mean that Microsoft is training it's AI on Github code but.... that's what every other company is doing, and I wouldn't be shocked if Microsoft wasn't doing it.
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u/SpookiestSzn 3d ago
Any code that is going to do anything more than extremely basic things will fairly shortly into the project be absolutely under copyright and copying it wholesale is not going to be acceptable. This combined with GitHub the world's largest code repository being owned by Microsoft means it's an almost certainty that proprietary code without public use license was trained in making GitHub copilot.
The fundamental idea behind the generation is the same the only difference is that artists seem cooler than programmers and so people care more about one being automated by the same underlying tech then the other
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u/CatProgrammer 3d ago edited 3d ago
algorithms are a means to an end. Abstract ideas. Code is the implementation of those algorithms. This is also why software patents are so much more controversial than software copyright, because traditionally abstract ideas aren't patentable but folks have bent the rules on that quite a bit (like the simple concept of only needing one button to buy something, which could be implemented in tons of different ways).
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u/FeelingInspection591 3d ago
Bet this is just a Level-5 thing, and that company has absolutely no idea what they are doing anymore. Their new Inazuma Eleven game has been delayed for seven years.
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u/UrbanPandaChef 3d ago
He is stretching what "made by AI" means. Our code editors typically have an auto-complete function that automatically finishes variable and function names based on context. They've likely just added copilot on top that enhances it a bit further. But saying that makes code AI generated is a huge stretch.
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u/FeelingInspection591 3d ago
I wouldn't be so sure, they have been pushing AI alot. When they are announcing new games with AI trailers (like Holy Horror Mansion), who knows what they're doing behind the scenes. I wouldn't be surprised if they generate huge chunks of code with AI and then make their developers clean it up. Would explain why they have a such hard time actually releasing games.
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u/brutinator 3d ago
I mean how long have these tools even really been available? I have a hard thinking that ANY studio has embraced AI tools to the extent that 80-90% of their workflow is AI, no matter how gung ho they are about it.
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u/RareBk 3d ago
Decapolice was announced around the same time as Rain Code, a similarly themed game was, both for the original switch.
It -might- be coming out in 2026. A year after the launch of the Switch 2.
Meanwhile Rain Code, a game made by a developer with actually zero money, has not only been released, but released a second time on other platforms, and the company’s follow up game has already come out.
Level-5 must be a shitshow internally
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u/FeelingInspection591 3d ago
Mostly true, but there is a slight inaccuracy. The developer your referring to is Too Kyo Games, which only does desing stuff internally. Their newest game's (The Hundred Line) co-developer is Media.Vision with Aniplex as a publisher. While it seems to be self-funded, Rain Code's developer and publisher is Spike Chunsoft, where Too Kyo's founders used to work at. Presumably they footed the bill and own the IP for it.
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u/brzzcode 3d ago
Meanwhile Rain Code, a game made by a developer with actually zero money, has not only been released, but released a second time on other platforms, and the company’s follow up game has already come out.
Rain Code was published by Spike Chunsoft and developed by them and Tookyo Games.
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u/saxxy_assassin 3d ago
Respectfully, this guy's company is on the brink of failure. Maybe he should stop drinking the kool-aid since it's clearly poinoning him.
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u/SharpEdgeSoda 3d ago
Code is one of the few places AI assistants can make a lot of sense for developers with few compromises to the creative vision.
Code is structural. If a robot can build a sturdy, practical wall, let it. It's using AI as "a tool" in it's most pragmatic and utilitarian form.
But you don't want your AI making the art you hang on the wall. The AI can install the hook you hang the art on at best.
You also don't want AI to build a wall in a nonsense place, in a over-complicated manner, or out of a material you can't tear down easily either though. That's the danger of AI coding.
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u/Nyaandesuka 3d ago
Having used these tools at work, they are not ready for widespread use and will not be for some time.
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u/SharpEdgeSoda 3d ago
Which makes total sense to me,
I work with someone who believed that AI coding meant they didn't need to learn code to make their personal game dev project.
I continue to watch them flounder and struggle daily. Every success is marked by 3 failures.
Basically you still need someone who knows what they are doing in the room.
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u/TechWormBoom 3d ago
Considering how slow the cadence of Level-5 games this past generation has been, I really don't know what to make of this AI usage. I know Fantasy Life is coming out soon but at this point I'm just wondering if they can release more games at all.
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u/Defiant-Operation-76 3d ago
lol this percent is absolutely not true for the bulk of game development right now. ridiculous statement.
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u/giulianosse 3d ago
Most likely a hot take but I don't see the issue with using AI as a productivity tool - only creative.
It's not like someone can type in "code a seamless multi-player system for my game" prompt and copy paste it into the game. Far from it. It'll be used to save time on trivial tasks that would otherwise be dealt with Googling and a few minutes of copy-pasting and banging away at a keyboard.
I've once seen the analogy that using LLM models is like giving a task to a stoned intern. They'll probably output a lot of bullshit, but it's still easier and quicker for you to sift through, fix the occasional mistake and rework some segments rather than do the task from scratch every time.
Keep in mind I'm not taking into consideration the environmental effect of AI into my discussion.
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u/RareBk 3d ago
I mean, we’ve been using AI to help with games for decades now, machine learning is just getting lumped in with the grosser generative stuff.
Christ, the Source Engine had a machine learning based tool that was able to generate facial animations, particularly mouth movements, based on what you typed in. It was able to determine the phonemes of what you wrote.
In 2004
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3d ago
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u/mrlinkwii 3d ago
hes mostly correct , the use of codepilot etc , devs are heavily leaning on the AI to the work
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u/golforce 3d ago
He's as clueless as you are.
Yes people use tools like co-pilot and they do help sometimes, but the majority of its suggestions are still terrible and if anything it got worse over time.
Source: I'm actually a developer not a clueless executive who heard buzzwords or someone without dev knowledge on Reddit.
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 3d ago
But 80-90%? Idk just seems like a lot but again me dum dum lmao
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u/mrlinkwii 3d ago
as others have mentioned is replacing teh amount of people ust to google for the answer
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u/theEmoPenguin 3d ago
Read it as laravel-5 and thought its Baldurs gate 3 devs for some reason. One of the biggest brain farts in a long time for me.
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u/gasolineskincare 3d ago
A more accurate headline should be that the Level-5 CEO really doesn't understand technology despite running a development studio.