Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 251 posts

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

#81

Post by fzeroracer »

izacus wrote: post #73
fzeroracer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world without patents and copyright, there's nothing stopping companies from just hiring the Pinkertons or something to threaten you into compliance. These sort of 'if we just get rid of patents things will be great' ideals will just benefit large corporations with the capital to get their way anyways. This doesn't mean our current system of patents and copyrights doesn't favor them either especially as they shr…

That's just absolute nonsense, where do you get these kind of ideas? Just because you don't have monopoly on your stupid ideas, you don't get to hire Pinkerton's to beat others.

It's not exactly an old thing. Wizards of the Coast hired the Pinkertons to seize cards and harass people extra-legally as recent at 2023. As I said, even if you remove the legal barriers preventing control over IP companies can and do operate on the fringe of or outside of the law to enforce it anyways.

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

#82

Post by piker »

markerz wrote: post #75
smcg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get rid of patents and copyright then entire industries would have to roll over and die (the music industry, publishing, Disney, etc). Also, people only invest in things if there is an expectation of profit. Your model for raising capital does not make sense.

Property rights are not the only way to create profit. That's a very capitalistic mindset. Plenty of societies have functioned adequately without our current form of property rights, either physical or intellectual. Before AI, it was the internet that really challenged intellectual property rights. When information flows freely, what happens? Example: many musicians make their pay by performing live, not from royalti…

The parent was responding to this diabolically uninformed quote from the GP: “You want a new Christoper Nolan film on his new idea, invest in it. That investment is a risk. Once made the money is made people can copy and distribute however they like.”

It’s hard to have “invest” in a sentence without a capitalist structure unless GP somehow meant invest their personal time or barter or something.

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

#83

Post by jmyeet »

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.

Companies under a capitalist mode of production are funddamentally incompatible with creative output because companies want a reproducible formula that they can scale. This is why we get endless sequels, annual FIFA, CoD, etc releases, adaptations of successful IP and so on. Creative output, be it music, movies, TV, games or books, doesn't scale.

There is an insatiable appetite for increasing profits. Eventually that means raising prices and/or cutting costs and the most significant cost is labor.

Game studios can only sruvive and keep excelling as long as they can maintain their culture and key talent and avoid getting finance people and accountants in charge. This is one reason why acquisitions usually mark the beginning of the end.

We're coming up on the much-ancitipcated release of GTA6. People might say that Rockstar has thus far avoided this rot but I kinda disagree. What made GTA magic for me was the social commentary and satire. I personally thought GTA5 lost its soul. Every previous GTA game I'd replay just to have fun, even if it's to do dumb stuff like causing mass pileups and explosions on the freeway in GTA:SA. I can honestly say that I never once played GTA5 again after finishing the main story and I also almost quit before I did. I have zero interest in the online crap but it's a huge cash cow for Rockstar.

So I imagine GTA6 is going to be visually stunning and I'm sure many will enjoy the new era of online gameply but I am fearful it will be even more soulless.

So, back to your point, I think the real problem is that the game devs need to own the studio. That's the only sustainable model. One could even call that the workers owning the means of production.

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

#84

Post by tptacek »

I say this with all possible respect, reverence even, for what Tarn Adams has accomplished and what continues to work on, but there may be no worse messenger for the problem of disintermediating game designers and creators from actual code authorship than the author of Dwarf Fortress. It's an amazing game that succeeds in spite of and not because of its code. Had Adams been able to use Opus or Sol when he started with DF, that game would be a broad cultural milestone today, and not just a nerd affectation.

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

#86

Post by iamnothere »

fzeroracer wrote: post #81
izacus wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just absolute nonsense, where do you get these kind of ideas? Just because you don't have monopoly on your stupid ideas, you don't get to hire Pinkerton's to beat others.

It's not exactly an old thing. Wizards of the Coast hired the Pinkertons to seize cards and harass people extra-legally as recent at 2023. As I said, even if you remove the legal barriers preventing control over IP companies can and do operate on the fringe of or outside of the law to enforce it anyways.

If that were to happen on a large scale, people could band together to provide security/resistance. Since what you’re suggesting is a complete collapse of rule of law.

If IP law is the only thing preventing society from descending into anarchy, then maybe we deserve anarchy.

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

#87

Post by shevy-java »

tptacek wrote: post #84

I say this with all possible respect, reverence even, for what Tarn Adams has accomplished and what continues to work on, but there may be no worse messenger for the problem of disintermediating game designers and creators from actual code authorship than the author of Dwarf Fortress. It's an amazing game that succeeds in spite of and not because of its code. Had Adams been able to use Opus or Sol when he started wit…

This seems to be miss the topic. Isn't the topic about AI and how damaging it can be? I am not sure why you want to discredit the messenger; the message appears to be correct. That should be a better focus.

> Had Adams been able to use Opus or Sol when he started with DF, that game would be a broad cultural milestone today, and not just a nerd affectation.

Well, that is an assumption. You have to demonstrate this claim. Right now I do not believe that claim.

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

#88

Post by chias »

The number of dickovers[1] this website pops up while you're trying to read the article is truly astounding. I gave it my best shot, but after the third one i figured I'd probably gotten enough of the gist of it and gave up.

[1] https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover

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

#89

Post by foota »

piker wrote: post #82
markerz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property rights are not the only way to create profit. That's a very capitalistic mindset. Plenty of societies have functioned adequately without our current form of property rights, either physical or intellectual. Before AI, it was the internet that really challenged intellectual property rights. When information flows freely, what happens? Example: many musicians make their pay by performing live, not from royalti…

The parent was responding to this diabolically uninformed quote from the GP: “You want a new Christoper Nolan film on his new idea, invest in it. That investment is a risk. Once made the money is made people can copy and distribute however they like.” It’s hard to have “invest” in a sentence without a capitalist structure unless GP somehow meant invest their personal time or barter or something.

I think they meant more like "people band together to pay Christophe Nolan to create some new film" ala crowdfunding. Is that a sustainable model for the world economy? Unclear.

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

#90

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

markerz wrote: post #75
smcg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get rid of patents and copyright then entire industries would have to roll over and die (the music industry, publishing, Disney, etc). Also, people only invest in things if there is an expectation of profit. Your model for raising capital does not make sense.

Property rights are not the only way to create profit. That's a very capitalistic mindset. Plenty of societies have functioned adequately without our current form of property rights, either physical or intellectual. Before AI, it was the internet that really challenged intellectual property rights. When information flows freely, what happens? Example: many musicians make their pay by performing live, not from royalti…

in engineering software land, FreeCAD exists, yet Fusion, Catia, OnShape, Creo, SolidWorks, NX, and many other paid Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Engineering softwares exist and have features and use-cases that FreeCAD simply does not have. In this scenario, how do you square taking the risk and time required to develop something good with the hopeful payoff for creating something?

I guess some of the major value in those closed softwares is enterprise support and that could still be feasible, but still, the question stands - if what is currently software piracy becomes legal, how do the people who commit a portion of their lives to improving whatever it is they're working on get compensated?

I regularly contribute to FOSS, but I am in quite a privileged position to do so, because I have time to do so after putting food on the table.

I hope this comes off in good faith, I'm genuinely curious

Post reply on HN