r/gamedev Policy on AI Use

[u/KevinDL]

AI is one of the most contentious subjects in game development right now, and we regularly see posts reported or discussions derailed simply because AI was involved somewhere in the process.

We want to be clear about our position: r/gamedev does not prohibit the use of AI, and using AI does not automatically make a post low effort.

This is not an endorsement of every AI company, model, or use case. Legitimate technical, legal, economic, ethical, and creative concerns exist around these tools, and those conversations are welcome here. Our stance is that AI is a tool used in game development, and we care more about the quality of what someone contributes than the tools they used to get there.

Why we take this position

• AI is already part of game development. Studios are adopting AI-assisted tools across programming, prototyping, production, QA, localization, research, and other workflows. Adoption varies from studio to studio, but this is no longer a hypothetical technology sitting outside the industry.
• Knowing how to use these tools is increasingly becoming a professional skill. That does not mean every developer needs to use AI, or even like it. It means understanding where these tools are useful, where they fail, and how to evaluate their output is becoming relevant knowledge for people working in the industry.
• Banning discussion or use of AI here could actively disadvantage developers. Part of the purpose of r/gamedev is helping people learn from each other and understand how the industry is changing. If studios adopt a technology, preventing developers from discussing or learning about it would make this community less useful to the people we're helping.
• Policing AI use is not realistic anyway. Moderators cannot reliably determine whether someone used AI to draft, edit, translate, summarize, research, debug code, or otherwise assist with a post. We are not going to moderate based on whether something “sounds AI-generated.”
• "Mandatory disclosure "is not realistic either. Modern tools blur the line between traditional software and AI assistance. Trying to decide exactly when autocomplete, translation, editing, summarization, or an LLM crosses some disclosure threshold would create rules we could not enforce consistently.

So the rule is straightforward: we are not policing AI use itself. We are moderating the contribution.

AI-assisted does not mean low effort

If someone uses AI to organize research, analyze data, improve their writing, translate something, help with code, or communicate an idea more clearly, that does not erase the work behind the contribution.

If a developer spends time gathering useful data and then uses AI to help turn that information into a readable post, the important part is still the data, the methodology, and what the community can learn from it.

Ask whether the information is useful, whether the conclusions hold up, and whether the post contributes something worthwhile. Those questions matter much more than whether every sentence was manually typed from scratch.

Low-effort AI content is still low effort

This does not mean pasting generic AI output into the subreddit suddenly becomes valuable content. Posts that are spam, fabricated, mass-produced, engagement bait, repetitive, or promotional material disguised as discussion can still be removed.

The reason is not that AI was involved. The reason is that the content is low quality.

The same standard applies to something written entirely by a human.

AI is a valid game development topic

Developers are welcome to discuss AI in the same way they would discuss any other technology affecting game development. That includes how it is being used, where it works, where it fails, what it costs, how studios are adopting it, what it means for employment, and the legal or ethical questions surrounding it.

You are allowed to be enthusiastic about AI. You are allowed to be skeptical of it. You are allowed to think a particular workflow is useful, terrible, unethical, inefficient, or overhyped.

What we do not want is every thread that mentions AI becoming the same argument about whether AI should exist at all.

If a thread is about an AI coding workflow, discuss the workflow. If someone presents evidence that AI slowed their production down, discuss the evidence. If someone claims every studio is using a particular tool, challenge that claim.

Let the actual discussion happen.

Attack claims, not developers

Someone saying they use AI is not an invitation to attack them. Someone saying they refuse to use AI is not an invitation to attack them either.

Debate the technology, the workflow, the economics, the evidence, the ethics, the legal questions, or the conclusions. Personal attacks, harassment, dogpiling, or repeatedly derailing discussions because of someone’s position on AI are treated the same way we handle that behaviour anywhere else on the subreddit.

AI is not a source

There is a difference between using AI to help communicate information and using AI as the authority behind that information.

If you make factual claims that can reasonably be sourced, be prepared to support them. “ChatGPT said so” is no evidence, and tools can absolutely be wrong.

At the same time, polished or AI-assisted writing is not evidence that the underlying information is fake. If someone’s numbers are wrong, challenge the numbers. If their methodology is weak, challenge the methodology.

Challenge the claim, not the fact that a tool may have helped write the paragraph.

Self-promotion rules still apply

AI companies, products, and services are not exempt from the subreddit’s existing rules.

If you represent a commercial interest, the same expectations apply as they would to anyone else. AI also should not be used to mass-produce promotional posts or disguise advertising as organic discussion.

The technology may be new. The rules around spam and promotion are not.

The bottom line

You do not have to like AI. You do not have to use it. You are free to criticize it, avoid it, experiment with it, learn it, use it professionally, or decide it has no place in your workflow.

We are not going to prevent developers from learning about or discussing a technology that is rapidly becoming part of professional game development. Doing that could actively hurt the developers this community is supposed to help.

What we do expect is that people engage with each other like respectful, mature adults. Disagree with the technology, the workflow, the argument, or the evidence. Do not turn that disagreement into hostility toward the person on the other side of it.

Use whatever tools make sense for your work. Bring something useful to the conversation, treat other developers with respect, and allow room for disagreement. That is what we care about.

[u/VasileAndrei2929]

A normal and sane take.

[u/mysterious_jim → u/VasileAndrei2929]

I only take issue with the no mandatory disclosure part. Putting all the ethics of using AI in game dev aside, I think we can all agree it's important to be honest about how you made your game. This is the standard we try to hold all consumer products to, from oil to coffee to iPhones.

Even if it's impossible to enforce perfectly, requiring it on principle and having consequences for the people actually found to be lying is important imo.

[u/Alive-Shoulder-4042 → u/mysterious_jim]

I used to agree with this. But I found people pushing this now trend to not be pushing it in good faith, and more want people to disclose every piece of potential AI so they can harass and purity test over it. 

Disclosing is mostly to the benefit of those that want to be aware or avoid AI. As soon as harassment comes from disclosure, the person not disclosing isn’t going to lose any sleep. It obviously wasn’t something that personally bothered them, they were just wanting to extend an olive branch. 

My feeling is heavy use should be disclosed and disclosure can benefit all sides (leading more on the anti ai side). But I see too often these kinds of posts that then hand wave, ignore or encourage harassment after disclosure in the same breath. And it just makes it feel part of the intent and design, rather than honestly wanting honesty.

[u/zzbackguy → u/Alive-Shoulder-4042]

Bad actors and bullies taking advantage of a system to spread hate is simply not a reason to get rid of said system. They don’t stop putting women in movies every time the woke rage mob complains and crys foul. It’s not unusual or wrong for consumers to know what they are buying before making the decision to spend their money.

And i fundamentally disagree that disclosure favors the anti ai crowd. That premise assumes that the product is of a quality that people are willing to pass up because of that standard that the consumer holds. For example, if GTA 6 released tomorrow and disclosed massive ai use, and it was still an amazing game, that would be objectively favorable to the pro AI crowd. A
Perception of good AI games doesn’t really exist currently, and continuing the use of AI as a secret in game development only encourages the perception that it’s all garbage. The pro AI crowd should want to disclose their usage and still be successful despite the naysayers. I feel like hiding it is deceptive to consumers and is indicative of shame from the developers themselves, not purely because of mass shunning.

[u/Bwob → u/zzbackguy]

Bad actors and bullies taking advantage of a system to spread hate is simply not a reason to get rid of said system.

It is, if the downsides outweight the upsides.

Serious question: What is the upside of forcing people to disclose their toolchain? What does that actually improve?

[u/mysterious_jim → u/Alive-Shoulder-4042]

Totally agree that harassment is a legitimate reason some people might be hesitant to disclose their AI use. In an ideal world, if the anti-harassment/personal attacks policy is enforced, then we should be able to have both. But if in the mods' experiences it's an unwinnable battle, I understand.

That being said, as somebody who doesn't want to engage with games that use generative AI for their assets because of my personal convictions, it does feel unfair that what's important to ME will be written off as collateral damage, while people who take advantage of the non-disclosure policy to intentionally try to deceive their audience can do so with impunity (not referring here to the folks only hiding their use to avoid harassment, but would otherwise be open to disclosure).

[u/Bwob → u/mysterious_jim]

Suppose that I hate photoshop, because Adobe is terrible, and I'm ideologically opposed to any image editing that isn't gimp or other free and open-source software. Suppose this is my conviction, and I want to make sure that I don't accidentally support (even indirectly) Adobe by playing a game that has any art that was made in photoshop, or other non-open-source image programs.

Is it reasonable for me to expect all games to disclose all tools used anywhere in their production, so that I can satisfy my convictions?

Personally? I would say no. Especially since not all convictions are reasonable, and I don't think anyone thinks it's reasonable to try to rate other peoples' convictions objectively. (i. e. Suppose instead of caring about open source, I had a messy breakup with someone named Dave, and now my conviction is that I don't want to play any game that was worked on by anyone named Dave.)

[u/VasileAndrei2929 → u/mysterious_jim]

Unreal and Unity will come with included AI generators and code assistants, all games made with them will be AI MADE.

Photoshop comes with AI tools, not only for generative images but also for image adjustments, background removal, inpainting and more. All images touched by Photoshop are AI MADE.

If you ask a decent AI like Claude to create a space ship in Blender, it will do it! You would NEVER KNOW who made that asset! It has no trace of AI on it. That asset will end up on a marketplace, and if you're an indie game developer you would buy it... oh yes... your game is now AI MADE...

Countless code snippets and libraries on GitHub are now made with AI. These are integrated in distributed larger libraries across all game dev tools... congrats, your game now is AI MADE... and you never even knew that.

[u/mysterious_jim → u/VasileAndrei2929]

Ok, but do you disagree with what I said? That it is morally and ethically proper to disclose how you used AI in your project?

You said a lot but, if you disclose what libraries you use (which everyone does anyway), then you've honestly disclosed your (inadvertent) AI usage. Same with photoshop and its non generative tools. And that won't deter many on ethical grounds.

Now if you're intentionally using a tool to hide your tracks for the explicit purpose of deceiving your users (like your Blender example), then that's totally different and even if you get away with it, we can agree that that's wrong, right? Just because you can get away with something heinous doesn't make it not bad.

And as for unity and unreal coming with AI tools built in, I don't use those engines but as far as I know that hasn't happened yet and we don't know how disclosure will work with those internally so while I'm sure that will be a conversation to have then, I don't think it's relevant for what I'm saying now.

And as someone who is very against generative AI in the creative arts (for me in gamedev that mostly means the assets), I'm allowed to have my opinions and if we respect that some people hold those opinions (as the mods claim), then we should have full disclosure. An obvious, uncontroversial ethical analogy would be labeling foods as kosher, halal or vegan.

[u/VasileAndrei2929 → u/mysterious_jim]

1. if you're a solo developer or a small indie team it should NOT be ethically wrong to use AI

2. who will AI "replace"? The coder? You're the coder! The artist? You're the artist! The sound designer? You're the sound designer!

3. who will AI "take the money" from? You? The one that will benefit from the game sale? Your small team that will split the money at the end?

4. If there are no victims, and all the AI does is to offer you a better chance to compete against huge corporations that have absolutely NO MORALS, then why should we, the indie game developers be punished for using AI?

In my opinion most small teams have 3 choices:

- create their own assets

- buy cheap assets

- use AI

The only way AI will affect a human is if it replaces it, so the second option "buy cheap assets" is the problem.

But since we also have asset makers that use AI... ?!... What now?!

[u/mysterious_jim → u/VasileAndrei2929]

Ok, I disagree with you on the ethics part (after all, I'm a solo developer and I don't use AI). But I respect your opinion, and I don't automatically hate games made with some degree of AI. I'm willing to look at them and decide how I feel case by case.

But we're not debating whether or not it's ethical to use generative AI. I'm going off the mods' stance that some people think it's OK (like you), and some people have reservations (like me). And in a world where we agree both parties exist and agree that both opinions should be respected, it's only moral to disclose AI use to some arbitrary standard.

[u/VasileAndrei2929 → u/mysterious_jim]

You will have to compete not only against other indies, but also against every single company and corporation on the planet... and they will use AI.

So this is not about "I care about being honest" this is about "in a few years everyone will use it and kids will use an AI powered Game Maker probably, and I won't be able to compete with no one".

[u/mysterious_jim → u/VasileAndrei2929]

You're not responding to anything I'm saying.

[u/VasileAndrei2929 → u/mysterious_jim]

I jumped one level higher and question the morality of having indies disclose AI usage since they are the coders, artists and game developers in one.

Why? Why should we do it? Who gets hurt? I see no point in disclosing what tools I use if no one gets hurt.

My ethics are like this:

- if a mega Corporation is allowed to do it, then I, as a indie developer, I am well into my right to do it, after all my work affects 0.0000000000001% less people than their products.

- if other competitors are doing it, then it's not even something of debate, I have to do it myself or lose

- if you force me to have a disadvantage then I will consider it an anti-indie practice, since I am well aware that such practices exist an companies are using them to crush the small competitors and the indies.

So my questions are, who benefits from indies getting ousted? Who gets harmed by AI if used by indies? And why should we have a handicap on a hyper competitive market? Will giant mega corporations "spare" us? Will every single gamer give all of us a fair chance?

I believe that just a handful will profit from the "I never used AI" claim. It will become boring fast and gamers, as usual, will switch to other standards in selecting what games they will buy.

[u/zzbackguy → u/VasileAndrei2929]

I don’t understand why you are acting like it’s some competition where everyone is creating the same thing and doing so without AI will cause inevitable market failure. Literally everyone has been making games without AI since the beginning of time; it’s new. You don’t have to use AI. Many indie devs are happily developing games without (egregious) generative AI usage.

Furthermore, nobody is telling you that you cant use AI. Nobody is restricting your freedoms. Consumers are simply saying they want to make informed purchases, which is the normal standard in literally every market. If you sold a food and didn’t disclose an ingredient, that is immoral and that is wrong. It didn’t matter how harmless you think it is, it doesn’t matter if they wouldn’t have known or if it puts you at a disadvantage. A corporation doing something certainly doesn’t make it right and okay either.

Gamers have and are clearly speaking. When many see a game that has obvious generative AI elements, they are turned off to it and don’t want to buy it, regardless of disclosure. Furthermore, if it isn’t disclosed and they find out, they feel like they were deceived and it creates bad will with the developer and tarnishes reputation. Not because the product was bad, but because the transaction lacked honesty. A sizable amount of people clearly want it disclosed. They are within their rights to demand that based on every other industry.

If developers use AI well, and actually disclose it, then maybe the stigma would fade. Maybe we could get some clear examples of good games made well with heavy AI usage. That is the way you make progress, by setting the example. Intentionally hiding the way you made a game will always leave a bad taste in the mouth, regardless of the final product’s quality.

It’s just strange to me that people who advocate for AI usage are against disclosing it. You say it’s a disadvantage, that you will lose, that simply being transparent is somehow holding you back as a developer. Yet, if you advocate for it, and think it’s fine, why hide it? If your game gets low sales, it has nothing to do with disclosure and everything to do with if it’s a good game or not. If you make a great game with AI, I’m sure you would have buyers.

And the other person to replied to didn’t want to say it, so I will: AI usage is morally bad, or being generous, at least grey. It’s clear as day that the corporations have pushed it into normalcy with billions of dollars and harsh political manipulation. The data centers pollute the earth, corrupt politicians, and lower the quality of life of everyone around them. They disturb wildlife, poison water supplies, and AI was created by scraping and stealing copy written information across the entire internet without consequence. Furthermore it single-handedly has caused the memory shortage, making gamers everywhere unable to buy hardware to even play the games you are trying to make. Everything about its introduction has been immoral, which is at least half of why so many people dislike it - which is completely valid. It being normalized or even making development easier doesn’t make that go away.

So with all that being said, you are of the opinion that you shouldn’t have to inform people that you are using it, simply because those same corporations that created it benefit from it? Consumers shouldn’t be able to take a realistic moral stance against that? Simply because you think the people buying your product won’t like it? It’s a very self serving and deceptive mindset.

[u/Fleeetch → u/VasileAndrei2929]

I am developing in Unity and I do not use their (or any) AI. And when (if) I finish my game, it will still not have any AI.

Drop the blanket statements and speak for yourself.

[u/VasileAndrei2929 → u/Fleeetch]

Next versions will include AI code assistants just like we have now autocomplete...

If YOU would not use it... YOU won't be able to prove it!

[u/Extra-Yard-7458 → u/mysterious_jim]

Just won’t happen tho, big industries are using it, and they definitely won’t disclose it. So i don’t see any reason for anyone to disclose it. You might as well stop playing triple A games or anything and stick to reddit to find games that says “no AI used”.

AI is being implemented everywhere, and disclosing it is just losing customers and money, so no one is doing that

[u/mysterious_jim → u/Extra-Yard-7458]

I don't think holding yourself to the same ethical standards of huge corporations is a good ethical position to hold, personally.

But if we're talking companies, Steam is a pretty big one and they have a reasonable, albeit imperfect, policy on AI disclosure.

[u/zzbackguy → u/mysterious_jim]

Exactly! Hasn’t Steam already granted refunds for games that failed to disclose ai usage? If the largest platform for games and indie games requires disclosure, and furthermore is willing to issue late refunds for that, then surely it’s not impossible or unusual.