Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

darkteflon wrote: post #141

asdff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that supply isn't really increasing. I mean, are we seeing 10x as many movies being released? NYT is now 10x as thick? Every source of quality has upped its quantity by 10x? Not at all. Seems output in this brave new AI era is more or less the exact same as it was in the dark ages. The only output that has gone up, logarithmically at that, is spam and other low effort fodder. I also want to push back on the…

Doesn’t the claim in the first paragraph only make sense if you assume that content becomes irrelevant as it ages? That holds for news but not for most other media. I have a huge Steam backlog and a Plex server stocked with (ymmv) many of the finest movies available in the form. There’s so much media there that there’s no realistic path to experiencing it all in my lifetime. That certainly has an impact on my inclina…

I wouldn't say irrelevant but certainly less popular over time compared to when it was newer. Even with all this supply on your fingertips I bet you watch a lot more movies from the 2020s than the 1920s.

EDIT: Since people are getting specific about that last line and missing the point, how about instead it's "I bet you watch a lot more movies from the $yourFavoriteDecade than the timemachine(start = $yourFavoriteDecade, direction = "reverse", years = 40)"

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

#152

Post by bugbull » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #86

fzeroracer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If that were to happen on a large scale, people could band together to provide security/resistance.

Oh wait. I’ve heard this one before. Just send in the national guard. A couple of well placed free speech donations with some winks and nods should be able to break that sort of terrorist organization.

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

#153

Post by wccrawford » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

daemin wrote: post #93

The one that sticks out to me is the last quote lamenting the fact that you can't talk about AI in games any more since the term AI has been hijacked to mean LLM instead. I wonder how long it will take for job ads in the game industry to bifurcate into AI (LLM) developer and Behaviour (game AI) developer.

I'm old enough to remember when AI meant a certain things, and games hijacked that to mean "some routines that make NPCs do things" and it's just gone from there. Gamers at the time were vocal about the "AI" not actually being AI, but they lost that battle.

The current use of AI for LLMs is a lot closer to the original intent that the "AI" in games ever was. It wasn't hijacked. It was retaken.

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

#154

Post by invalidptr » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

madrox wrote: post #128

When we've used software to disrupt other industries to deliver more with fewer people we called that a good thing. And it is, because consumers tend to win. Games are a hit-driven business, so they're going to feel the squeeze faster than, say, SaaS, but it's coming for all of us. Software is now being disrupted. Reap the whirlwind. I worked at a (very) well known media company in Hollywood during the Netflix disrup…

Netflix disruption might be an apt metaphor, since it did severely damage the industry and reduce the quality of its output. Those Hollywood execs were right, even if they were ultimately doomed. It's another step in the Sheinification of everything. If it happens to software too, it won't be a victory for anyone except the owners of software companies.

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

#155

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #146

asdff wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that supply isn't really increasing. I mean, are we seeing 10x as many movies being released? NYT is now 10x as thick? Every source of quality has upped its quantity by 10x? Not at all. Seems output in this brave new AI era is more or less the exact same as it was in the dark ages. The only output that has gone up, logarithmically at that, is spam and other low effort fodder. I also want to push back on the…

> I'd argue that supply isn't really increasing. I mean, are we seeing 10x as many movies being released? Steam is releasing 50-70ish games every single day now from what I understand. That's a crazy number. Compared to 2016 which saw 10-15 per day And in 2023 (pre AI?) it was 30-40ish

I'm trying to put a wedge between quality content and slop fodder. I admit slop fodder is increasing exponentially. But quality content e.g. movies that see theatrical runs, it isn't like there is some huge increase of supply of that relatively speaking, or some huge scale up in theater capacity to show more supply.

For games, forget steam as a whole but consider maybe a single studio. It isn't like EA is moving to monthly vs yearly releases of their regular titles even though output is 10-12ish-x more in theory. It isn't like they are covering 10x as many sports in terms of games as they did previously now that they can do 10x more output with this new tooling, in theory of course. Output in terms of actual deliverables seems to be the same as it ever was.

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

#156

Post by SoftTalker » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #151

darkteflon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the claim in the first paragraph only make sense if you assume that content becomes irrelevant as it ages? That holds for news but not for most other media. I have a huge Steam backlog and a Plex server stocked with (ymmv) many of the finest movies available in the form. There’s so much media there that there’s no realistic path to experiencing it all in my lifetime. That certainly has an impact on my inclina…

I wouldn't say irrelevant but certainly less popular over time compared to when it was newer. Even with all this supply on your fingertips I bet you watch a lot more movies from the 2020s than the 1920s. EDIT: Since people are getting specific about that last line and missing the point, how about instead it's "I bet you watch a lot more movies from the $yourFavoriteDecade than the timemachine(start = $yourFavoriteDec…

Watching a movie from the 1920s requires paying some attention to follow characters and plot. Watching a movie from the 2020s is just 90-120 minutes of nonstop CGI visual stimulation.

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

#157

Post by scantron4 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 8:59 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #151

darkteflon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the claim in the first paragraph only make sense if you assume that content becomes irrelevant as it ages? That holds for news but not for most other media. I have a huge Steam backlog and a Plex server stocked with (ymmv) many of the finest movies available in the form. There’s so much media there that there’s no realistic path to experiencing it all in my lifetime. That certainly has an impact on my inclina…

I wouldn't say irrelevant but certainly less popular over time compared to when it was newer. Even with all this supply on your fingertips I bet you watch a lot more movies from the 2020s than the 1920s. EDIT: Since people are getting specific about that last line and missing the point, how about instead it's "I bet you watch a lot more movies from the $yourFavoriteDecade than the timemachine(start = $yourFavoriteDec…

Ok but I watch more movies from the 2000s than from the 2020s.

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

#158

Post by bluefirebrand » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #155

bluefirebrand wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd argue that supply isn't really increasing. I mean, are we seeing 10x as many movies being released? Steam is releasing 50-70ish games every single day now from what I understand. That's a crazy number. Compared to 2016 which saw 10-15 per day And in 2023 (pre AI?) it was 30-40ish

I'm trying to put a wedge between quality content and slop fodder. I admit slop fodder is increasing exponentially. But quality content e.g. movies that see theatrical runs, it isn't like there is some huge increase of supply of that relatively speaking, or some huge scale up in theater capacity to show more supply. For games, forget steam as a whole but consider maybe a single studio. It isn't like EA is moving to m…

> I'm trying to put a wedge between quality content and slop fodder. I admit slop fodder is increasing exponentially

Fair enough, but the increase does make it a lot harder to separate signal from noise

> Output in terms of actual deliverables seems to be the same as it ever was.

Any efficiency that the technology is revealing seems to be getting gobbled by bureaucracy to me.

I suspect that what we're seeing instead of "more deliverables" we're seeing "same deliverables with less effort"

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

#159

Post by bugbull » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

voidfunc wrote: post #32

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.

The idea is to break the middle class. Blue or white collar it doesn’t matter. A politically active middle class is a danger to the designs of Silicon Valley ghouls.

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

#160

Post by boinkboink78912 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 9:04 PM UTC

invalidptr wrote: post #154

madrox wrote: post #128

When we've used software to disrupt other industries to deliver more with fewer people we called that a good thing. And it is, because consumers tend to win. Games are a hit-driven business, so they're going to feel the squeeze faster than, say, SaaS, but it's coming for all of us. Software is now being disrupted. Reap the whirlwind. I worked at a (very) well known media company in Hollywood during the Netflix disrup…

Netflix disruption might be an apt metaphor, since it did severely damage the industry and reduce the quality of its output. Those Hollywood execs were right, even if they were ultimately doomed. It's another step in the Sheinification of everything. If it happens to software too, it won't be a victory for anyone except the owners of software companies.

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