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Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

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Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#31

Post by mschuster91 »

martythemaniak wrote: post #24
newtonianrules wrote: post #5

Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore? I mean, companies seem to be having massive layoffs and placing ever more work on the remaining employees. At what point will the remaining employees just collapse? Are we just reverting to the mean after years of zero interest rate policy? Would love for folks with experience working in tech in the 90s and 00s especially to chime in.

I'll give you my diagnosis, which is derived from this: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-t... The thing to realize about the SV executive class is that they have constructed a closed ecosystem around them where they only talk amongst themselves and a small number of supporting actors who say what the execs need to hear. A CEO will talk to other CEOs he will not talk to his skip reports. Alte…

> In this information environment you see extremely rapid horizontal spread of weird, stupid and esoteric ideas - one CEO does a layoff, all of them will do layoffs. One turns MAGA, they all turn MAGA

As for the layoffs, that one was to be expected, a correction after the insane hiring sprees during the ZIRP phase.

As for MAGA... well, Trump made it clear. Either you walk the line with him, or you get screwed.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#32

Post by voidfunc »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

A sizable portion of the blue collar economy collapses too if the white collar portion stops having money to spend or suddenly has an influx of time to do some of the stuff the blue collar workers were doing for them like lawns, home repair, painting etc.

Its all tied together. The current system cannot function if unemployment goes double digits.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#33

Post by hax0ron3 »

bena wrote: post #28
hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

The issue isn’t every other CEO having access to the “make game” button, but who will buy that game when the customers have access to their own “make game” button?

Good point. Except, the problem is that at AI prices similar to current ones, it would cost someone thousands of dollars to make the game for himself.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#34

Post by spwa4 »

bhewes wrote: post #21
dexwiz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit in video games as an industry is largely the gambling industry hiding under the another umbrella. I'm not even talking about loot boxes. Just old school gambling games like roulette and slot machines but in a digital format. Once you strip that away and loot boxes, the numbers are great for classic games.

Worse then gambling at least I can take cash out. These are pure extraction machines. When I was part of a game studio startup all the VCs wanted the loot gambling games, some of the teams they funded hired casino guys.

Yes, then this part was regulated. And so if you allow cash out, you're regulated.

The result was not regulated gambling but extermination of cash out options (well, and sometimes very obvious illegal gambling houses).

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#35

Post by neutronicus »

newtonianrules wrote: post #5

Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore? I mean, companies seem to be having massive layoffs and placing ever more work on the remaining employees. At what point will the remaining employees just collapse? Are we just reverting to the mean after years of zero interest rate policy? Would love for folks with experience working in tech in the 90s and 00s especially to chime in.

I think they just want, broadly, to divest from the American tech work force, whether that's via AI or outsourcing. If "the remaining employees just collapse" it's a data point in support of the thesis that developing software in HCOL markets is unsustainable, and if they don't, margins are better!

So I think decision-makers are seeing layoffs as win/win.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#36

Post by spwa4 »

makerofthings wrote: post #19
andrewmutz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t you make more money if the game is fun to play? (People buy the game)

A huge marketing budget can push a mediocre game far further than a really good indie game that doesn't get lucky with youtube.

... which is why it was, and still is, common economic knowledge that the government must control marketplaces. Meaning the physical areas where trading is taking place.

We've been through this rodeo before you know. Private ownership of markets, with the obvious result monopoly abuses. Hell we've had private money and that was a total disaster too. And now we have VISA as opposed to government controlled payments.

But then people stopped caring about that. With abuse upon abuse the result. Because it's not like this result, that only by buying a prominent position on a marketplace you can have success as a seller is only the case online. This is very much true in meatspace as well.

And now almost everything you can buy is effectively through a privately owned (semi-)monopoly rather than a marketplace. From supermarkets to app stores.

Addendum: and then governments must NOT let anyone, not even other governments, force "whoever pays most" rules (like the EU is forcing through in Europe)

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#37

Post by cyberax »

newtonianrules wrote: post #5

Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore? I mean, companies seem to be having massive layoffs and placing ever more work on the remaining employees. At what point will the remaining employees just collapse? Are we just reverting to the mean after years of zero interest rate policy? Would love for folks with experience working in tech in the 90s and 00s especially to chime in.

It seems like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have all switched into "extract max profit" mode. They don't care about quality or even features anymore.

And it comes from the top: the CEOs are not caring anymore, so their lieutenants are not interested in doing any work either. So the companies get turned into fiefdoms without any central guiding direction.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#38

Post by simonuv »

mschuster91 wrote: post #31
martythemaniak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you my diagnosis, which is derived from this: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-t... The thing to realize about the SV executive class is that they have constructed a closed ecosystem around them where they only talk amongst themselves and a small number of supporting actors who say what the execs need to hear. A CEO will talk to other CEOs he will not talk to his skip reports. Alte…

> In this information environment you see extremely rapid horizontal spread of weird, stupid and esoteric ideas - one CEO does a layoff, all of them will do layoffs. One turns MAGA, they all turn MAGA As for the layoffs, that one was to be expected, a correction after the insane hiring sprees during the ZIRP phase. As for MAGA... well, Trump made it clear. Either you walk the line with him, or you get screwed.

[dead]

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#39

Post by megagpt4 »

tiahura wrote: post #3

The argument that it is in shambles wasn’t particularly persuasive. “videogames are as profitable as ever” It seemed more like the understandable frustration of someone whose profession is being automated. Schumpeter creative destruction, but not shambles.

The profitable videogames are mobileslop appstorespam games loaded to the brim with microtransactions, as well as the really good games that everyone wants to play, which are impossible to create more of on a whim.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#40

Post by pkaye »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

> Blue collar workers and service industry workers aren't in immediate danger of being replaced by AI, so there is a cushion period in which there is still a large number of people who have jobs.

There will just be a lot more workers competing for those blue collar and service industry jobs in the future which will drive down their wages.

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