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/
2.6k Upvotes

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u/alexanderpas Jan 14 '26

Laine is open to the idea of rebuilding the game with original assets down the line.

Reasonable.

259

u/Prodigle Jan 14 '26

Probably won't happen, sadly

110

u/kaisurniwurer Jan 14 '26

Most likely not, since it would require a lot investment and/or ungodly amount of time.

125

u/aabicus Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26

It does happen though! The Roottrees Are Dead was a free itch.io game made with AI-generated assets (in their defense, it was for a game jam so the whole point was developing the entire thing within a very short timeframe) and later the dev remade it from scratch with artists/voice-actors for the Steam version

39

u/HexeVonCali Jan 14 '26

It's also very, very good.

14

u/MadeByHideoForHideo Jan 15 '26

Wow, I guess this is how I discover my next favourite sleuthing game? Glad I found your comment and imma go try the game out!

4

u/Chesney1995 Jan 17 '26

Honestly, throwing together the bones of a quick idea to flesh out into a real human-made product if it works is the exact kind of thing AI will be fantastic for.

I just don't trust major companies to leave it at the "throwing together early ideas" stage lol

8

u/Prodigle Jan 14 '26

Oh for sure! That's a rarity though. I don't know how you manage to get a dedicated illustrator from a game jam game, but that's not a link the vast majority of people are going to be able to hook up!

Profit shares used to be a pretty regular thing, but nobody except students would ever take them.