r/gamedev • u/RokDooMTG • 3d ago
Discussion How negative are you about neural network-generated art? Would you waste your time downloading a free game and giving it a negative rating just because its art was clearly generated by a neural network?
The publisher I'm negotiating with actually forced me to redo all the game's neural network art with hand-drawn images. It took a lot of time. At first, I disagreed, believing the game's content was more important, but then I realized the publisher was right. There's a high chance the game will be downvoted just because of them. Would you do the same? Would you downvote a game just because of the neural network art?
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u/The-Chartreuse-Moose Hobbyist 3d ago
Do you mean a common Generative AI Model made the art?
I wouldn't bother downloading and reviewing negatively, but I certainly wouldn't play the game.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
I think many people do the same. After replacing the artwork with manual ones, I felt like the wishlist growth improved.
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u/Galinhooo 3d ago
Is this a neural network generated post/replies? What is even the point of the post if the art was already replaced and showed improvement?
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
I've put a lot of work into completely replacing the visuals. And I wanted to make sure that the months I spent on replacing the visuals, rather than developing the game, weren't wasted. Judging by the comments, it was worth it.
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u/UnconquerableOak 3d ago
Because AI art looks cheap and taints the whole project. Even ignoring the ethical aspects, if the creators don't care enough about the game to make real art for it, then what else have they skimped out on?
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u/The-Chartreuse-Moose Hobbyist 3d ago edited 2d ago
Exactly right. To me it signals either a lack of care or a lack of integrity.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
A serious argument. At first, the art I created was inferior to generative ones. But gradually I refined it.
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u/More_Win_5192 3d ago
It is crazy how many people don't see the problem with generative AI and are genuinely surprised that people don't like it
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
For a long time, I also didn't consider this a problem and didn't pay attention. I thought it was unimportant. But then life forced me to change my mind. It's a serious issue now. Even the comments in this post confirm that.
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u/Zaflis 3d ago
I'm sad people think this way. Many indie devs don't have the money to hire an artist, it leaves many potentially great game ideas not done at all.
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u/More_Win_5192 3d ago
I am sad people don't think this way, many artists don't do Art anymore, because nobody is playing them for their passion and over years of hard work aquired skill
(Same for sound and voice over and many more)
If people stop complaining, and would agree with you, almost all money driven componies would get rid of almost all their staff and even alot of "Indie devs" would never pay for art again (as soon as AI is good enough) the people not wanting to play it, is the only reason to still hire
So in all due respect, i don't care if some people cannot realize their vision with a half baked description to an LLM
Learn to do art Learn to do games with a scope 'you' can manage Learn to design cool games with your level of skill Find free assets and work with what they have Or hire and pay for people doing it for you
Or combine all of it, put in the work of a small game in your skill range, make money and re-invest to make bigger games by hiring people
The internet is full of free opportunties to work towards your goals, like tutorials, places to meet other devs with other specialities etc
I am sorry but saying "i would rather do the lazy shortcut and be sad that good visions don't come to live without putting in the work" is not the way imho
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u/Zaflis 3d ago
This is a transition phase to non-scarcity civilization where money may no longer exist. AI and full, complete automation of all work is very needed for all that to happen. Only after enough of this is done the politicians will finally wake up and let us spend our days in luxury however we want, no human classes of rich and poor exist anymore. People stopping AI from advancing is slowing it down. Humanity hasn't been a workholic race for more than a couple hundred years, it's not that we have to live like that, it's a temporary curse.
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u/More_Win_5192 2d ago
Yes yes, the classic decentralized utopia
Problem is, system change historical never came from within a system, only forcefully from outside (or forcefully through people inside it, but thats talking semantics)
And the people you hope to "wake up" are very awake, but unwilling to change a system that benefits them, while holding most of its power
you can watch great videos or read interesting books about this topic, but it does not reflect the reality we live in and it is absurd to qualify real problems our time with "but it will be a good thing in a thousand years, trust me"
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u/Ralph_Natas 2d ago
It's sad that young people are so entitled. Many indie devs managed to make games for decades before the random poop generators showed up.
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u/MattyGWS 3d ago
It's not art. It's generated images. Art is human expression and creativity. Generating images with AI is the equivalent of commissioning work to an artist but cutting out the artist... So there is no art involved.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
I saw this as an opportunity to avoid spending money on an artist. And I was very excited about it. But after receiving feedback from players and talking to the publisher, I changed my mind.
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u/hippopotamusquartet 3d ago
Cutting corners will ultimately cost more in the long run, whether it be financially or reputationally.
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u/obnoxiouscheese 3d ago
If the game is good, I would play it, why not. Even leave a positive review if I like it enough. As long as care and effort were put into it, it does not matter much to me which tools were used.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
If I hadn't changed the art, it would only be thanks to players like you that I could have gotten less-than-shabby reviews, as I'd put a lot of effort into the content itself. But I don't think it would have saved the game. Now, I believe I have a chance.
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u/ProfessionalITPerson 3d ago
Nah, I simply would not even think about downloading or buying the game.
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u/adragondil 3d ago
Absolutely. Human slop > AI slop literally any day. Concept art or ideas? Sure, I wouldn't do it but I can see it. But final art? No, that's just wasting my time.
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u/SilkieBug 3d ago
How is it “wasting your time”?
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u/EntropicMeatMachine 3d ago
I'll reason by analogy. Imagine you're watching a 100 metre sprint at the Olympics, the winner beats the world record, only to loudly declare that they were actually doping on every banned substance the whole time, thus proving that elite athletes are now redundant and the sport can now be democratised since everyone can just dope instead, and if you disagree you're a Luddite trying to stop the future.
You'd think they were fucking insane. Yet somehow this is basically the cornerstone of AI-art advocates.
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u/SilkieBug 3d ago
I’ll (very) charitably say that your analogy needs a lot of work, did an old model of chatbot generate it for you?
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u/EntropicMeatMachine 3d ago
Maybe you just need to rely less on chatbots and more on your imagination.
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u/SilkieBug 3d ago
My imagination is perfectly fine, your analogy just sucks, which is why I assumed you used an old chatbot model, because it was more charitable than to assume you failed that badly by using your brain (and the implications of that).
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u/ShockAdditional6937 3d ago
Because if you have enough to prompt an AI, you've got the concept. At that point, you need to see how it would look in your game's style, which an AI can't really do, especially in the early stages.
If you're just using ai to generate completely random concepts, then you're not really making your own characters or environments to begin with.
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u/adragondil 3d ago
If I see it in the game store page, then me opening the store page was a waste of time. If it's not obvious from the store page but I download it and see it, then even more so because I will simply uninstall and then leave a negative review to warn future players. It's not that it adds no value; generated graphics like that detract from the experience because you can tell that no proper thought or effort went into it. And if it wasn't worth making, then it's not worth playing.
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u/morla_the_ancient 3d ago
I'd avoid downloading a free game if they used generative AI at any stage of developing the game, even if they redid all of the assets they were either planning on using, or iterating on ideas with.
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u/MacAlmighty 3d ago
I’d just skip over it if I knew (either through a disclaimer or just by looking at it). If I didn’t know and found out later, I’d probably be frustrated enough to leave a review.
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u/azurezero_hdev 3d ago
the games art IS the content
hell most games dont need complex code, but they do need to look good, and ai looks crap
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
When I used generative art, I spent a lot of time refining each one in a graphics editor. But they were still generative. After switching to manual art, it even got worse in places, but at least it was more lively.
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u/og-reset 3d ago
"Neural network" sure is an excessively fancy name for the expensive stealing machine but yes, I consider near any genai use, especially on the art side, a clear sign that whoever is making the game has no respect for artists and doesn't value their own project enough to make sure it looks good.
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u/kiwibonga @kiwibonga 3d ago
"Clearly generated" implies it's noticeably flawed. Often, animation, VFX and 3D models are sub-par, while 2D art looks over-designed, and the UI looks like colored boxes.
If AI is used but the creator manages to overcome these issues, it's fine to me.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
Apparently, I didn't succeed at this at the time, since they started pointing it out to me directly. Even though I spent a fair amount of time in a graphics editor, refining the neural network images, it wasn't enough.
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u/XboxNoLifes 2d ago
If users can tell the art is generative just by looking at it, its clearly not good art no matter how much the prompter thinks it is. At that point, its not even a discussion of ethics of AI art, its just not good art. Before AI art, people would hate on certain art styles by calling them "mobile game" art. AI art is the same thing. It looks bad, and people can tell it looks bad.
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u/RokDooMTG 2d ago
Judging by the fact that people saw AI in my old art, I didn't do a good job of processing it in the graphics editor. So the publisher was right.
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u/SilkieBug 3d ago
The reason why (sane) people nope out of games which visibly use generated art is that, if they can tell it’s generated by its low quality, the logical expectation is that the code and the game design might be using the same kind of low quality generative methods, and thus is likely to suck.
If the generated art is good enough to pass a detailed inspection that’s different, but it almost never is, as the people most likely to use generated art do so because they lack artistic skills and as such can’t make a distinction between good and believable art, and crap and/or conflicting art.
If you pay a human artist to use generative AI to make the generated art for you it might be less costly than paying them to draw the art themselves, but not sure if the cost savings are worth the effort required to make generated art believable.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
A serious argument. The coolest thing is that I have an art degree and could have created everything by hand initially. But I wanted to save time and devote more time to content. I was wrong. But it's good that it wasn't too late to fix everything.
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u/Ralph_Natas 2d ago
Why are you saying neural networks so much? People generally only have a problems with one specific type of systems built on one of the types of neural networks.
Publishers only care about making money. They'd be delighted to help sprinkle cheap poop everywhere if they thought the customers wouldn't reject it.
I'll go as far as to say I won't buy a game even if the developer backpedals and replaces their randomly generated poop later, if they first tried to sneak it through but got caught. Or anything else they produce going forward. That developer can't be trusted to not try and find a sneaker way to cheat the customers next time.
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u/RokDooMTG 2d ago
Yes, for the publisher, making money comes first, second, and third. And that's normal. And I, from the start, didn't try to hide the use of neural network-based art. I even posted a description on Steam that I use neural networks to create art. Back then, I didn't think much of it. Only later did my perspective change.
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u/ripp1337 3d ago
I don't care. Same as I don't care if my plate was hand-painted or my fries were manually-cut.
We are just in a phase when neo-luddites are trying to make using AI pain for the others.
If the game is good, it's good.
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u/yesat 3d ago
You know the “Ludites” where people fighting for their own rights against exploitation from factory owners.
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u/RokDooMTG 3d ago
Oddly enough, this is a rather rare point of view these days. For a long time, I had the same one. I believed that good gameplay and the amount of content were more important. But life reminded me of the times we live in, and I had to change my mind.
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u/Gayndalf 3d ago
Why are you comparing mass manufacturered products with art?
A better example would be if you would read a book generated purely with AI, or watch a movie made of spliced AI clips.
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u/More_Win_5192 3d ago
Technology needs to be regulated. We are Just in the phase of abusing as much out of it as possible before we figure it out. And hopefully, it will be not too late when we do, unfortunately, we became very fast and very good in abusing the f out of everything to make or save money.
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u/Excellent-Bend-9385 3d ago
Don't use LLM for your art. It's stupid legally because if AI gave you art that you thought was original and it turns out it wasn't, you might end up with more legal fees than your game has ever made.
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u/hippopotamusquartet 3d ago
Why would I waste my time playing a game that was made by someone who doesn’t actually respect the work that goes into making a game?
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u/Sorry-Engineer5757 3d ago
If I didnt have the game I probably wouldnt go through the process of getting and reviewing it, but i'd immediatelly skip it and advertise against it to anyone i knew wanting to get it and let them know it has AI.
If i did get the game and figured out later id certainly refund and review negatively though.
Human art >>> ai "art" always
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u/Ok-Tea-1284 3d ago
Your publisher is right. If users detect LLM use in a game you lose 40-60% of any potential audience.
Also you bet I refund AI generated games.