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The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

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Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#51

Post by thaumasiotes »

pclowes wrote: post #30

I still strongly feel all layoffs to date have much more to do with interest rates than AI. This may change but I am deeply skeptical of massive RIFs being caused by AI at this point. Look up FRED data in Interest Rates, SWE job postings over time and then look at the stock price of one of these companies claiming “AI layoffs” over the same time frame (eg. Block). Then read reports of 0 discernible AI impact to US GD…

> I still strongly feel all layoffs to date have much more to do with interest rates

Really, interest rates? Not the change in the law that made it illegal to treat software developer salaries as a business expense?

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#52

Post by doctorpangloss »

ares623 wrote: post #45
shagie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key part of that is a that its dominated by kids. The video I linked is one to start with... https://www.takeaway-reality.com/post/roblox-demographics-st... There are 151.5 million daily active users on Roblox. (70% growth YoY) 44% of Roblox users are over 17 years old. 56% are younger. APAC has the most users (29.5%), followed closely by US & Canada (28%). Europe is the third largest market with 23%, while the res…

I wonder how sticky Roblox is as the current cohort of kids get older. Of course more kids are being born, but last I checked that number is getting lower.

what is more likely:

- everything Roblox says is true

- a company that spent a decade throwing shit at the wall until something stuck, that seemingly has absolutely, utterly zero cultural impact, with a huge, inauditable non-US audience, where every game that any adult has tried is absolutely trash, that has tons of employees but seemingly not a single one has gone onto found a great game studio or do anything interesting in media unlike every other successful game studios, that Apple could ban for violating the mini-apps rule in an afternoon and hence ruin their entire business with a stroke of a pen... is overstating things.

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#53

Post by jasomill »

andrewflnr wrote: post #36
abirch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's not only the supply of CS graduates, it's their training as well. CS education seems to have changed little over the past 50 years. While the skills needed today are drastically different than those needed 10 years ago. I have little doubt that if I had an opportunity to use Claude to do my CS homework, I would have used it. It seems that the curriculum should assume that college kids are going to use…

This is like saying that people are going to the gym with power armor, so personal trainers should dramatically increase how heavy the weights are for their clients.

In a world where trainees are sent directly from the gym to the front lines to fight in power armor against power armor-equipped opponents, they probably should.

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#54

Post by handoflixue »

andrewflnr wrote: post #36
abirch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's not only the supply of CS graduates, it's their training as well. CS education seems to have changed little over the past 50 years. While the skills needed today are drastically different than those needed 10 years ago. I have little doubt that if I had an opportunity to use Claude to do my CS homework, I would have used it. It seems that the curriculum should assume that college kids are going to use…

This is like saying that people are going to the gym with power armor, so personal trainers should dramatically increase how heavy the weights are for their clients.

If you want to build strength, the gym is the right place to go. If you want to move large, heavy objects, you get a truck (or power armor, I guess).

Ideally, the people operating the large powerful vehicle are in fact trained in how to use it safely, because trucks (and power armor, and LLMs) can do a lot of damage if used incorrectly

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#55

Post by Lerc »

stego-tech wrote: post #6

No real idea why this bubbled to the front page, as it’s just another milquetoast subjective take from a single point of view recapping the same events from their context. Nothing added, no food for thought, just the same old, same old. We need less folks ringing alarm bells without guidance and more folks offering help in troubling times. This, is not helpful.

I don't think milquetoast is the right term (not less because it hasn't really left North America). People seem more angry than timid.

There are problems, some are very visible, some are present but not very visible, and some are imaginary.

There is a growing discontent like I have not seen in my lifetime, and I don't think much of it can be characterised as unjustified. The problem is the narratives that people are forming about those problems are mostly all wrong. This is easily provable by showing how mutually exclusive all of the narratives are, the correctness of any one of them would invalidate many more.

I don't don't have the expertise or data to conclusively show what the cause of any particular aspect. To make a guess, I would look to history and note that those who blame the new thing are usually wrong, and those who warn about actions being done without regard to the consequences are usually right.

People are angry and want to understand what is causing the problems, and it seems the unscrupulous have found that an answer to their questions is effective, even if it is a fiction.

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#56

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

andrewflnr wrote: post #36
abirch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's not only the supply of CS graduates, it's their training as well. CS education seems to have changed little over the past 50 years. While the skills needed today are drastically different than those needed 10 years ago. I have little doubt that if I had an opportunity to use Claude to do my CS homework, I would have used it. It seems that the curriculum should assume that college kids are going to use…

This is like saying that people are going to the gym with power armor, so personal trainers should dramatically increase how heavy the weights are for their clients.

Or that people are doing their driving tests using FSD

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#57

Post by amarant »

shagie wrote: post #29

For game dev, I believe that it is remiss to not include mention of the change in the gamer landscape. Ten years ago, it was console vs PC as the big game question... and various studios took bets on one or both sides of that. Today... it's Roblox vs everything else. Steam has its data at https://store.steampowered.com/charts/ - in the past 3 days, 45 million peak online at once. Roblox has 150 million daily active u…

To put some of those numbers into perspective: Candy crush Saga has 273M MAU and Minecraft has 204M MAU.

Those games are enormously popular and might need some context of their own let's continue: Battlefield 6 has had at most 774k concurrent players, and peaked at 22.5M MAU

so Roblox is about 30% more popular than Minecraft and candy, or a good 19 times more popular than battlefield 6.

Someone is getting a new yacht.

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#59

Post by daemonologist »

the_af wrote: post #37
shagie wrote: post #29

For game dev, I believe that it is remiss to not include mention of the change in the gamer landscape. Ten years ago, it was console vs PC as the big game question... and various studios took bets on one or both sides of that. Today... it's Roblox vs everything else. Steam has its data at https://store.steampowered.com/charts/ - in the past 3 days, 45 million peak online at once. Roblox has 150 million daily active u…

Wow. I'm not very clued in lately but I do own plenty of games in GOG, Humble Bundle and yes, Steam. I was just thrilled that Planet of Lana II got released recently. This is the first time I heard of Roblox. And it's supposedly this huge phenomenon? I guess this is what getting old feels like.

Of interest to me regarding Roblox is that it's been around for a long time - public release in 2006, almost 20 years ago! It was around when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember being aware of it and thinking it was dumb (certainly, I didn't know anyone who played it).

I wonder what happened to make it so popular in the present day. Was it incremental improvement, or a better fit with modern devices/culture; maybe simply being free to play?

Re: The Impact of AI on Game Dev Jobs. Open to Work Crisis

#60

Post by sph »

gotwaz wrote: post #48
shagie wrote: post #29

For game dev, I believe that it is remiss to not include mention of the change in the gamer landscape. Ten years ago, it was console vs PC as the big game question... and various studios took bets on one or both sides of that. Today... it's Roblox vs everything else. Steam has its data at https://store.steampowered.com/charts/ - in the past 3 days, 45 million peak online at once. Roblox has 150 million daily active u…

The Attention Economy(media and enertainment sector - gaming/movies/tv/streaming/sports/news/music and social media) needs a Central Bank. Peoples attention behaves similar to how currency works. And the system currently behaves as if Attention is not scarce and has no upper limits. So chaos is the natural state. Very similar to how markets worked before central banks emerged. So someone, say a King, would over print…

Weird long explanation about currency, but no detail on what ‘attention economy needs a central bank’ even means in practice. Sounds like an empty LinkedIn slogan.
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