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Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

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Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#231

Post by foota »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #156

I think a part of the reason why I'm kind of dismissive of AI when it comes to creative endeavors is that I haven't seen it do something that isn't already possible using a "not-intelligent" solution. For example, AI website builders. It's impressive as a tech demo that you can prompt an AI to make a website for you, but otherwise I don't think this is going to be disruptive to the web design industry since it's alre…

I've found this to be pretty amazing from the demos: https://stableprojectorz.com/

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#232

Post by johnnyanmac »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #156

I think a part of the reason why I'm kind of dismissive of AI when it comes to creative endeavors is that I haven't seen it do something that isn't already possible using a "not-intelligent" solution. For example, AI website builders. It's impressive as a tech demo that you can prompt an AI to make a website for you, but otherwise I don't think this is going to be disruptive to the web design industry since it's alre…

>AI doesn't eliminate the complexity, it just hides it. At best it'll get you maybe 80% of where you want to go and you can get to the remaining 20% by hand. At worst, the complexity is so thoroughly hidden that addressing it isn't an option. It simply does not allow you to manually edit the outputs, or makes it unreasonably difficult to do so.

That's the thing about games. It's "easy" to make a website, it's very hard to make a not buggy, minimally compelling game. And it works with multiple medium to boot.

If an AI can get me 80% of the way to a good UI, or a decent asset, or a right sounding SFX, that's a huge boon to development. The big issue with these early adopters tend to be that they

1. lack the ability to finish that 20% of editing, because that 20% is still really dang hard.

2. aren't interested in finishing the 20% because that 80% will be enough of a cash grab for asset flip level studios. Hence how the reputation of tech becomes a grift rather than a boon.

3. can do it, but want to be first to market so they skimp out and get something out for financial reasons

These all work against what consumers want out of their game, but that's early tech for you.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#233

Post by Jensson »

programd wrote: post #226
password54321 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are a lot of games exactly like that, but haven't had the person with the viewerbase to boost them up. Nor will they ever. Such as? Just name one so we can all know. This is your time to help them out no matter how little and there are "a lot" apparently so it shouldn't be hard.

Hex of Steel. Turn based hex wargame, very niche but with a fairly large worldwide community into such games. Only the solo developer is doing plays on youtube and twitch. The game has been seeing a slow upward sales trend as the niche wargame community realizes how good it is. If you've played SSI and Avalon Hill hex games as a kid you should get this. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1240630/Hex_of_Steel/ https:/…

That is an indie success, almost 400 reviews for that price is good for a solo developer, he can live well on that as long as he continues to create and sell content for.

Failures are games with 50 or less reviews or a bit more if they have much lower price points, there aren't many gems at that level. Note that a large majority of indie game developers don't live in USA, indie gaming isn't dominated by American developers unlike the regular software industry.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#234

Post by johnnyanmac »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #205
fabiopolimeni wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm…, even you use something low-code, or even no-code tool, you still have to learn how to code (former) or learn how to use some kind of visual scripting tool (latter). If you could simply type in plain English what are the mechanics you have in mind instead, then this new (simpler) way of creating game logic it may has the potential to unleash creativity from a broader audience. It is like saying why would I need…

Something that I never see addressed for this: So, let's just grant that someday, the tech will be mature enough that this is possible, and let's even say it goes beyond videogames to movies, to visual art, to graphic design, to writing, etc. Let's say that AI gets to a place where any joe blow can put in a prompt, and get a competent, and even let's be generous and say good product out of it. A solid 8/10. So... who…

>Why would you ever buy a game off Steam again if you can just ask your game making AI to make you the exact game you want, even just copying the damn description out of steam?

If we're assuming AGI levels of development, AAA scope, and very little compile time: cost. If it costs $20/month (VERY optimistic) to use an AI program to make your stuff, and some dude on Fiverr offers to pay $2 to make your game for you, the better deal is to "hire a dev".

Also should never underestimate the power of community and brands. Even if you can make your own Ironman, people will still want to see and talk with each other about the Ironman movie. That's why making a competent knockoff that may in fact improve on the original movie/game will still sell nowhere near as well. Companies pay a lot of advertising to make that the case.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#235

Post by johnnyanmac »

majormajor wrote: post #217
krapp wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI works well enough that just a vague prompt leads it to spit out a professional, compelling and creative game with assets, VO, music, coherent level and production design, and everything else that goes into successful modern games... companies are going to own that and keep that on lockdown, because it's essentially a free money machine. You won't have a "game making AI" that isn't already owned by big media com…

Nah, the standard will just change. A "AAA game" will be the ones that have that extra it whether that's something resulting from human curation (the person firing off prompts who knows how to tune them and knows what other people want) or style (the person assembling things to be more cohesive) or editing (the person making sure the AI puts out an absolutely amazing story instead of a meh one) or whatever. Basically…

as a nitpick, you can argue there was no "AAA title" in 1994. Games like MGS2, FF7, and RE2 in '97/'98 is where we commonly consider to be the beginning of the moniker for "AAA".

But yeah, GTA 3 was over 20 years ago. A bit sad that it's still non-trivial to make a game that scope as one person, mostly because 480p assets and fixed lighting pipelines won't cut it anymore (regardless of scope).

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#236

Post by johnnyanmac »

dwallin wrote: post #29
bckr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that, while making a game is not hard, making an excellent game is hard. And I think making an excellent game is a lot like reaching product-market fit. It takes fast iteration with user feedback to find the fun, then a ton of polish to make it extraordinary. It has to be so good that, out of those 73,000 games and counting, I’ll spend some of my money and time on it. The way GenAI can help here, I think, is…

Making an excellent game isn't even enough these days, that's just table stakes. With so many games out there it's a market of lemons. You need to have a way of rising above the noise. For AAA, it's having budgets to make games on a bigger scale than everyone else. For mobile games, it's generally about leveraging a large war chest to fuel an advertising-driven margin game. For prestige/indie games you need something…

> You need to have a way of rising above the noise.

if you believe in the social media discuourse, "making a good game" is enough, and Steam algorithms + word of mouth will boost it up for you. I think that's highly unrealistic, but I do think making "a really good game" will guarantee a certain minimum sales on Steam.

I also don't think that minimum sales is close to sustainable compared to a minimum wage job, but that's always the part of the conversation left out. $10k in a year is a great side hustle and well above the median. It's a complete failure even for the most humble game dev that lives in a carboard box and survives off of potatoes.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#237

Post by johnnyanmac »

jaggederest wrote: post #161
vunderba wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just get some popular streamers/channels to do a review/let's play" Just is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

You give them money. It's not a very heavy lift except for the wallet.

do you know how much it costs to even get a small but recognizable streamer to stream your game?

Remember, Microsoft gave Ninja a $55m contract to stream on the now dead Mixer. And ofc Ninja mostly streams the most mainstream of mainstream games anyway. These top streamers are way more expensive than any ad program to just approach and inquire to.

anyways, to answer my rhetorical question: I hear the rule of thumb is either $0.10-0.20 per video view, or $1 per concurrent view as a starting point. you can use that to guestimate whoever you had in mind when you were thinking of paying a streamer.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#238

Post by [deleted] »

fabiopolimeni wrote: post #180
Bjorkbat wrote: post #156

I think a part of the reason why I'm kind of dismissive of AI when it comes to creative endeavors is that I haven't seen it do something that isn't already possible using a "not-intelligent" solution. For example, AI website builders. It's impressive as a tech demo that you can prompt an AI to make a website for you, but otherwise I don't think this is going to be disruptive to the web design industry since it's alre…

Uhm…, even you use something low-code, or even no-code tool, you still have to learn how to code (former) or learn how to use some kind of visual scripting tool (latter). If you could simply type in plain English what are the mechanics you have in mind instead, then this new (simpler) way of creating game logic it may has the potential to unleash creativity from a broader audience. It is like saying why would I need…

[deleted]

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#239

Post by johnnyanmac »

Jensson wrote: post #168
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have defined it to mean "high brow" Both in - "high brow" - niche genres categories (which I both gave as examples) you will likely find quite some games that that are excellent, but won't make a lot of money. But don't pick too much on these categories since my central point is "Making an excellent game takes quite different skills than creating a commercially successful game".

The main games in niche can easily sell 100k copies, that is a lot of money for a couple of indie devs. And no those games are far from excellent, I play a lot of such niche games but they all suck quality wise compared to mainstream games with similar sales, I play them for new experiences but I never expect quality from them. So it is much easier to sell well enough to maintain an indie team by making niche games t…

> The main games in niche can easily sell 100k copies, that is a lot of money for a couple of indie devs.

I understand your point, but I hope people are seeing the irony of making such arguments under a post detaliing how the median game on steam can barely pay rent.

I don't think even if you filtered that data for "overwhelmingly positive games" that it'll suddenly average $500k+ revenue.

>Maybe you think that "100k" copies is a failure since it didn't sell millions, I have seen people thinking along those lines. But no, 100k copies is a massive success, even 10k copies is more than enough for a 1 person indie game, so those "indie gems" hardly failed at all.

really depends on team size. 100k is good, but divided among a team of 10 and after steam cuts, a $5 game is getting roughly 35k for a dev. You know, minmum wage in high COL areas. likewise for a solo game that made 10k sales.

My definition of success is as simple as "can the studio sustain itself from the sales of its games?". Maybe in a day where rent wasn't $3000+, but not these days in the US.

Re: Building an AI game studio: what we've learned so far

#240

Post by johnnyanmac »

dkarras wrote: post #26
EncomLab wrote: post #11

Hard facts: Steam has over 73k games - and is growing at over 10k games per year and increasing. The median game on Steam earns less than $800 - down from $4k in 2020. Making a game is not hard - marketing a game is.

It is not just about marketing though. There is this belief, especially among fledgling indies that if they make a game that they think is good, and if they are able to market it well, it will be a success, even a hit. A hit in gamedev is not easier than creating a hit in the music industry really. Even the veteran composers are not able to replicate (or even achieve) creating a hit. Possibility of success depends on…

>I'd honestly struggle to find any good games (right for their time and audience) that failed because of a lack of suitable marketing. In the same vein, I'd struggle to find a hit game that succeeded because of marketing.

only if you're looking at the most general audiences. That's the advantadge of targeting a niche. Not everyone will buy furry art, but the ones that do have high demand (and apparently, deep wallets). Indies can't afford to be "for everyone", and even AAA games are struggling.

But if you want an obvious example of the latter: Raid Shadow legends. Literally spends millions upon millions on advertising a year, and I can't imagine many would organically find and talk about such a game themselves. But even after 6 years they seem to have the funding to get every youtuber under the sun to talk about it. You very much can outadvertise a mediocre game as long as you have the right monetization scheme (which spoilers: is not "buy one copy of $10 game).

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