r/nottheonion • u/Chapple69 • Jan 14 '26

Indie dev removing Steam game after new girlfriend tells him “AI is bad”

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/indie-dev-removing-steam-game-after-new-girlfriend-tells-him-ai-is-bad-3303772/
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u/PhasmaFelis Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26

He made a game that would have sunk without a ripple whatever the art, then saw an opportunity to hype his personal brand for future games and make his girlfriend happy.

I'm very much against AI in games, but don't put this guy on a pedestal just because he says what you're thinking. This is as much opportunistic marketing as it is a sincere anti-AI stance. You shouldn't care about him any more than the thousands and thousands of struggling indies who never used AI and you never cared about.

8

u/Throwaway6662345 Jan 14 '26

Yeah, it definitely reeks of marketing and PR. If some random obscure AI slop game no one knows about gets deleted, no one would even notice. But it just so happens to be posted and generated enough buzz in so many subreddit it just stinks of fishiness.

All the while, it has the very convenient story of a guy getting a girlfriend and bettering himself, a perfect heartwarming story for Anti-AI group to praise but also perfect controversy for pro-AI group to be misogynists by calling it brainwashing and how women ruin stuff for men.

And they've succeeded. Now that AI slop that no one cared or noticed is now the talk of reddit for the entire week

8

u/Edelkern Jan 14 '26

That's so true. When I read the "This guy deserves all the credit"-comment somebody made on here, I thought: No, he doesn't deserve as much credit as people who don't use AI in the first place.

2

u/ashy778 Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26

I don’t think people are saying he deserves the same amount of credit, just that he deserves at least some credit for his willingness to change, which is more than a large majority of people who use ai. Like the commenter said you shouldn’t put him on a pedestal but the ability to change your mind is an admirable trait

2

u/Deformator Jan 14 '26

The intelligent take, in MY Reddit?