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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

#41

Post by kibwen »

password54321 wrote: post #28
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.

Word spreads fast on good games due to Reddit and Twitch. Look at the success of Balatro and how much marketing that had. The number of games you listed just highlights how little Steam filters.

This is subject to survivorship bias. Balatro is a great game that deserves its success. But it's easy to imagine a universe where it simply never got any traction, anywhere, and died in obscurity. Conversely, this suggests that in our current universe, many games just as great as Balatro have quietly passed without ever getting their 15 minutes of fame.

At the end of the day, much of success just hinges on luck. There is no law of the universe that says that great art must be appreciated.

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

#42

Post by perks_12 »

misnome wrote: post #39
barbariangrunge wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that’s true, I invite you to sort steam games by release date and to simply buy the most recent 10 of them in the categories you like that aren’t free to play. I mean, they’re all equally good, right? Making good games is easy. Assuming those low review counts are only due to bad marketing? It will even save you money, compared to buying the titles you normally would Or we can acknowledge that making a g…

> Making good games is easy This is entirely you hallucinating an opinion they never expressed. The op said: > Making a game not a _good_ game.

OP basically implied this, by arguing about marketing being the culprit, not the quality.

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

#43

Post by Tade0 »

bloopernova wrote: post #37
aredox wrote: post #3

What a neat idea! Next: a strategy game where you give orders in plain text, instead of hundreds of clicks per minutes

Has anyone tried to create an LLM based crew on the bridge of a ship or spaceship? Being able to delegate tasks to competent subordinates would be very helpful.

Even a failed attempt at this would be great - imagine your crew frequently misunderstanding your orders and the ensuing chaos.

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

#44

Post by password54321 »

kibwen wrote: post #41
password54321 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word spreads fast on good games due to Reddit and Twitch. Look at the success of Balatro and how much marketing that had. The number of games you listed just highlights how little Steam filters.

This is subject to survivorship bias. Balatro is a great game that deserves its success. But it's easy to imagine a universe where it simply never got any traction, anywhere, and died in obscurity. Conversely, this suggests that in our current universe, many games just as great as Balatro have quietly passed without ever getting their 15 minutes of fame. At the end of the day, much of success just hinges on luck. The…

I immediately knew someone would claim "survivorship bias" but at the same I knew that they would fail to come up with a single counterexample.

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

#45

Post by bnralt »

hwbunny wrote: post #38
barbariangrunge wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that’s true, I invite you to sort steam games by release date and to simply buy the most recent 10 of them in the categories you like that aren’t free to play. I mean, they’re all equally good, right? Making good games is easy. Assuming those low review counts are only due to bad marketing? It will even save you money, compared to buying the titles you normally would Or we can acknowledge that making a g…

95 % of games are boring, and unoriginal. Why? Because most of these people, who create these games are entrepreneurs. They only see the possible money from these. These games have no heart whatsoever, why? Because good games need passionate people, not blue collar suits. There are 1 million subscribers at the gamedev reddit. It's ridiculous, and when people ask something, they get total balooney, ridiculous botlike…

Being passionate doesn’t guarantee a game being a success, though. Look at a game like Knights of the Chalice 2. It's definitely a labor of love, and many people who play it think it has the best DnD combat of any game out there, and maybe some of the best turn-based combat as well. It has mediocre graphics, though, and a high price point, so it’s had extremely slow discoverability. It also has a somewhat niche audience (people really into complex DnD combat), so it’s not clear how much of an audience is out there even if discoverability wasn’t an issue.

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

#46

Post by Ito10 »

Not a bad idea. But what's next?

For example, I am indeed interested, but will anyone really play the game I make with AI?

If I spend the same time watching YouTube and learning Godot or Unity, will it be more likely to make games and even make money, and I can also use Meshy to produce my assets. Unity also has Muse (though it's hard to use).

If the games I make don’t make money, what is your business model?

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

#47

Post by nicklecompte »

FredrikNoren wrote: post #12
mysterydip wrote: post #4

How will you ensure the content created for a game is free from copyright violations? Or is that up to the user to determine?

We haven't looked into exactly how this will be handled yet, but I believe this would fall under the same laws and restrictions as any other online platform (YouTube, TikTok etc.), it's just that the production tools are different.

This is an unacceptably lazy and reckless comment: your very first example blatantly plagiarized from Star Wars. You even called the bombs "BB-8 bombs" to make them look like the robot! It's just a dumb demo, but it means your product has no safeguards against copyright infringement, and you don't even care.

I suspect you might say "users of our technology assume full responsibility for copyright violations" or whatever, but what are your customers supposed to do if your product plagiarizes something more obscure than Star Wars? They can't be expected to check every generative AI output against every IP. You and your team need to take responsibility for the copyright problems your tool is guaranteed to create as currently implemented.

I really hate this "better to seek forgiveness" approach to copyright OpenAI has encouraged.

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

#48

Post by jprete »

bogwog wrote: post #36
jprete wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're claiming copyright...." Who is "they" in this sentence, the company from the OP or Meshy? I'm guessing the company from the OP?

"They" would be Meshy. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that you can't grant a license to some IP unless you own it.

Thanks for the clarification; I genuinely wasn't sure which you meant.

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

#49

Post by jayd16 »

hwbunny wrote: post #38
barbariangrunge wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that’s true, I invite you to sort steam games by release date and to simply buy the most recent 10 of them in the categories you like that aren’t free to play. I mean, they’re all equally good, right? Making good games is easy. Assuming those low review counts are only due to bad marketing? It will even save you money, compared to buying the titles you normally would Or we can acknowledge that making a g…

95 % of games are boring, and unoriginal. Why? Because most of these people, who create these games are entrepreneurs. They only see the possible money from these. These games have no heart whatsoever, why? Because good games need passionate people, not blue collar suits. There are 1 million subscribers at the gamedev reddit. It's ridiculous, and when people ask something, they get total balooney, ridiculous botlike…

Games are boring and unoriginal because it's incredibly hard to make original, engaging content no matter who you are.

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

#50

Post by report-to-trees »

skadamat wrote: post #35
report-to-trees wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by infinite variations here?

I'm guessing they mean with some type of procedural generation or another randomization approach in mind that creates a bunch of new maps, bosses, vehicles even! Advance Wars, if I recall correctly, has a hand-crafted set of maps and battles structured in a campaign story. So once you're done, you're done. Replay-ability is a bit limited. I absolutely loved Advance Wars and my brother and I played the heck out of it…

Interesting, yeah I guess that makes sense.

I always thought those strategy games were missing a competitive community and better PvP experience but I could also see how more replayability would make them more popular.

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