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

#181

Post by vablings » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

astrange wrote: post #54

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…

> Twitter was changed so that only views favoured by Musk show up prominently in replies. This doesn't happen anymore, it's actually relatively good at sorting bad comments to the bottom now. The current problem is it's full of wannabe LinkedIn influencers with "Building for AI agents in business in public" in their profile using LLMs to reply to everything.

Twitter only shows you what you want to see

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

#182

Post by unknownfuture » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:23 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…

Who's we? You're certainly not speaking for me.

Making things previously impossible possible? That's the business I joined.

Destroying people's livelihoods without care for the consequences while pursuing monopolies, capturing the value as rent seekers, and ultimately enshittifying entire industries?

Yeah, no, I know I didn't sign up for that, thanks.

And if you're thinking "wait that's not AI". Yes. That's precisely what these companies are trying to do.

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

#183

Post by unknownfuture » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

vablings wrote: post #180

invalidptr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I honestly couldn't disagree more. With the advent of online services, the quality of both tv series and movies have massively increased. Budgets are larger the appetite is larger and grass roots non-Hollywood creators have a serious shot at disrupting the market. I am personally no longer interested in the same shitty nostalgia rehash of previously garbage marvelslop and the same 15-20 actors on my screen and that h…

Sure. Who doesn't love 10 episode seasons every three years that are regularly and unceremoniously cancelled whenever the algorithm says so. I know folks in the industry absolutely love the total lack of job security...

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

#184

Post by fv3y » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

Foreskin_Mafia wrote: post #92

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…

[dead]

>This is some New Zealand-level of alternative facts.

Please help me grok this statement...

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

#185

Post by glimshe » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #166

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 have a huge Steam backlog Yeah, and by the time you get to many of those games they will feel clunky and outdated. It's not just the graphics that ages, but also the game mechanics, UI and UX, and the general presentation of the game. I would rather play Path of Exile than Diablo 2. > I concede that that’s always been the case for durable written works thanks to the local library. But the scale of convenient supp…

> It's difficult to point out what is better about the more recently written stories, but somehow they are more appealing (in some aspects)

For starters, the use of the language. Even a book written 20-30 years ago can feel a bit off in word choice and idioms. I know many people are into that, but for others it just increases the cognitive load of reading.

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

#186

Post by glimshe » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:42 PM UTC

cosiiine wrote: post #161

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…

To debate your point, we are absolutely seeing Amazon being flooded by AI books. Any open marketplace is currently experiencing a race to the bottom.

True, but these aren't becoming best sellers. It's a bigger problem for Amazon than for readers in a sense, as they need to implement a good way for people to filter out these offerings so customers don't simply walk away and go back to physical bookstores (perhaps a blessing in disguise).

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

#187

Post by jijijijij » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:49 PM UTC

archagon wrote: post #176

ryandvm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, enshittification was already one of the toughest unsolved problems that successful software platforms face. It had not yet occurred to me that AI was going to increase the pace.

It's pretty clear to me that the primary value-add of AI is as an enshittification accelerator. (At least in the commercial sector.)

The primary value of AI is solving problems AI created and becoming an inefficient interfacing layer for things it made functionally obsolete.

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

#188

Post by protocolture » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #29

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.

Previously on “companies just aren’t run that well anymore”, HN considered this analysis of Boeing’s collapse following a reverse-takeover by an acquired, collapsing, competitor that ended up kicking out the quality-focused management in favor of profits: (6 years ago, 281 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21971040 I assume a similar analysis exists somewhere for the big names in gaming that financial en…

Todd Howard gets a lot of flak from the bethesda fanbase, but I reckon whoever replaces Todd Howard is guaranteed to be worse.

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

#189

Post by jijijijij » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 11:07 PM UTC

s_dev wrote: post #64

munificent wrote: post #20

1. Human attention is a finite resource. 2. Digital media allows a single authored work to consume the attention of an unbounded number of people with near zero marginal cost. Further, once a work has been authored, it is available to be consumed forever. 3. Computers, software, the web, and now AI have drastically lowered the cost to produce a work of digital media. You can't have fixed demand and have the supply in…

Let it collapse get rid of patents and copyright. They are holding us back. People will assume that means that you can copy and distribute for free and profit without work. You already can. The business model will have to shift to collecting money BEFORE making something rather than trying to collect it AFTER making. You want a new Christoper Nolan film on his new idea, invest in it. That investment is a risk. Once m…

Every masterpiece or visionary work, which suffered late recognition is evidence against your proposal.

If art is shaped by popular demand only, you will get nothing but the most comfortable, unchallenging, forgettable popculture fluff imaginable.

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

#190

Post by ethbr1 » Tue, Sep 01, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

lobf wrote: post #115

louthy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore? If you mean the games industry, it was always poorly run. I worked in games in the 90s and 00s it was a cottage industry of nerds, many of whom had success with an 8bit game in the 80s (where they did everything: a one person team), to then have to run large teams of devs/artists/designers/etc without any leadership experience and more complex hardware.…

This is one of my favorite eras / subjects in tech history. I was just recently reading about the history of the Ultima series and you’re describing Richard Garriott. As games were pressured to be bigger and prettier and use 3D graphics, suddenly the lack of managerial experience (partly) caused the later games to spin out of control and they were forced to release a series of bad titles that brought the whole franch…

> As games were pressured to be bigger and prettier and use 3D graphics, suddenly the lack of managerial experience (partly) caused the later games to spin out of control

This generalizes to the industry, not just Origin.

Corporate game dev uniquely seems to attract incompetent middle and upper management with extreme egos.

I guess because the people who scramble to the top of the pile in an industry with an endless incoming supply of naive new workers tend to be those who spend most of their time networking and sharpening their knives.