The fact that you have to go through it is crazy.
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This should have been a one time check between the artist and the marketplace staff approving their product so that the customer is always confident they are buying original works and that’s it!
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Using AI generated content for game development makes absolutely no sense and defies the purpose of creating a video game, or being a video game developer or an artist.
I completely disagree.
I’m waiting for when AI Generation allows for me to specify to an AI generator exactly what kind of 3D assets or maps I want to create, because I lack the creative element that allows me to put what I envision into fruition using tools like Blender, Photoshop or even just the UE5 engine these days.
The complete lack of progress I see because everything visual is just a “block” or “sphere” or “cylinder” is extremely deterring for me when it comes to progressing with any actual video game development because I can never see my game.
Ultimately, I want to make a game - I don’t want to be the creative asset developer, animator, sound technician, graphics design master… I just want to make my game that’s in my mind, and seeing any progress when creating it is near impossible because of the aforementioned roles. When I spend all my time writing functions and coding, it’s extremely disheartening to know half of it will all have to change when different assets are used because of different animation states or rigging (and that’s just referencing a character model).
Realistic AI Generation can’t come quick enough, in my opinion.
So you don’t want to create and develop assets, animations, sound effects, graphics and art, which are the main and necessary steps any developer must take in order to make a video game (and to improve, become a better developer/artist, a better thinker/problem solver etc), but still you want to create a video game relying on AI?
You can’t “make a game” without taking the necessary steps that make a game, or without having the required skills and talent to make a game. AI should be used with dull and repetitive tasks, not to skip the actual journey! There are movies about this! Thinking about this genuinely made me a little bit more sad.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to generate a documentary using AI about how I went to the most dangerous places or earth, and then I’ll maybe sell it to Netflix or something, I don’t know, today everything is possible and acceptable.
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It’s not that, I like to learn how to do all those things, but I’m one man, I have kids, a job, etc.
If I can take a basic AI generated ‘zombie-mesh’ I’m totally willing to go from there, but at some point it will get to a place where AI will be able to not just generate the mesh, but the system to vary the mesh, the material, etc. It’s called convergence on a large-scale.
Happy to note I used AI to base my assets on and if I have the time and the skill to do so, I’ll make-them-my-own with whatever enhancements I care to make. I like do own things like that but I also have to bow to the idea of limited-time, and that others might not make that choice.
I don’t want a market flooded by AI stuff, but I want it clearly labeled if it’s there, and how it was used in the process.
I will admit those locutus-type cyborgs do look pretty nifty, but I would surely edit them from there. Tomorrow, I just might not need to…
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And after that, a few steps down the road (assuming you believe what some ai bros say about rate of progress) you don’t even make a say in making a game, just type a prompt. Or actually not even that, another AI will provide a prompt. And then “your” (because if most of it is AI generated can you call it even ‘your’?) game is being drown in sea of low effort AI generated games.
Btw. there are tons of assets out there that are free, no plagiarism machines are needed. There is tons of stuff given away for free by Epic (and Unity and other marketplaces) on regular basis. And even more that are paid (often super cheap in bundles or on sales), made by humans. Use those.
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Thats no real excuse a lot of us have the same responsibilties i have kid, full time job mortgage etc to pay for.
Your want to use of ai generation not only means you cant copy right your stuff it also means your unwilling to support the development community.
As you can easily use free assets or purchase assets or music, etc.
Also your lack of creativity just means your not exercising that part of the brain and unwilling to learn as thats all it is learning to do it.
So if you want to make a game support the community and dont use the plagerism machine because really your only doing yourself a disservice and making yourself less trust worthy.
But thats my opinion i am a 3d artist and I would have to purchase sounds and potentially coding (although i can do it kind of) . Id rather do that than use stolen material from.the machines and class it as my own.
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Maybe your situation is different. Maybe you have a better support-system, better skills? Not everyone does, and to claim one persons ‘excuse’ is invalid is a poor attempt at character assassination. Not everyone can do like you, or her, or him. No True Scotsman, eg? Everyone MUST be the same as ‘your-standard’?
Fallacious. I buy stuff all the time to use in my games. I’m not saying I’d prefer an AI generated asset over a handmade one, likely not, but it doesn’t mean an AI-generated asset cannot be quality. As well, I am sure you knew my buying habits before you made this statement? And simply buying one-of a thing invalidates everything else? That’s a False Dilemma.
And I do! And sometimes, I even make my own!! (the horror)
And you know me well enough-personally to engage in personal-level attacks such as that? Wow, gotta real Karnac here.
Another False Dilemma, one doesn’t preclude the other.
Ah, so you don’t code? You don’t level-design? You don’t make textures from scratch? You don’t brainstorm new ways to shuffle information around so you can ‘make the GPU do all the work’, or things like that? How much expertise you bring to the table!! Thanks for the insight…
Overall, your response is full of fallacious logic so I’m gonna finish my coffee and head out to my nice, sunny day. BTW, just because an alternative option exists doesn’t mean it meets the needs at hand.
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Agreed. Just to note that I’m not saying I would automagically prefer an asset made by AI but rather that one made in such a way doesn’t have to automatically be tossed into the bin.
I disagree.
All of the creative elements that come with developing assets is not making the game - and I can’t stress that enough.
Is it currently required to be able to actually make any game worth playing? No, but it would be of benefit because otherwise your game would look like all my games - just blocks on canvases.
That doesn’t mean that you must learn to be an artist in order to develop a video game. Someone could make a game by buying assets from the asset store, if all the assets they wanted in their game already existed.
AI Asset development provides exactly that, and it would take away the absolute pain that is learning how to be an artist when you’re not a gifted artist - especially since most game engines don’t just do what they claim they can do.
For example, I’ve recently been working in the sequencer to create a custom animation. I got so far through the animation that I then needed to attach the static object to my character at the reference point I have in my animation, and it just gets thrown to a new position and completely ignores all of the new position data I’d previously given the static object.
This was something that was noted as a bug back in 2016 - and it still appears to be an issue now in 2024.
All of this pain is what needs to be removed from video game development to allow all people to create games to a high standard. The actual game logic and gameplay is what matters most - not how creative you can be with assets.
Also your lack of creativity just means your not exercising that part of the brain and unwilling to learn as thats all it is learning to do it.
Not at all - I’ve been ridiculed by my friends for my “mspaint” drawings to emphasize points before and I’m told I have the artistic skills of a four year old.
Some people just aren’t blessed with artistic creativity and being able to put what they see in their mind, onto paper (or into a game engine).
I’ve spent countless hours (like weeks worth) trying to learn how to make assets, texture them, animate them…
Do you know what they look like?
Terrible. Not even remotely what I imagine.
Anyone arguing against AI generated content at this point is essentially saying:
Being a developer is an exclusive club that you need to be a member of. No one else is allowed to make video games. If you say otherwise, you’re against the exclusive club of developers.
AI is used (and, if not currently, will be used) in any industry that requires a computer. If you’re wanting to do all the work yourself and release your assets for a premium price - great, good for you! That certainly doesn’t mean other people should be forced to do it just because you chose to do it, and it doesn’t take away your ability to make money off of your talent especially since you can choose to make use of AI to save yourself time and produce better quality assets by refining them afterwards with your superior skill and talent - that is what will make your assets stand apart from the rest of the assets.
I’d also like to highlight, I couldn’t care less about people selling AI Assets on the marketplace. I personally wouldn’t spend any money on them.
If I was going to spend money on anything, I’d buy the AI itself that allows me to generate my own assets and then refine them from there if there’s small discrepancies, or even pay someone to refine the asset for me.
Similarly, if I was going to ever release a game with marketplace assets, I’d have used placeholder free assets to make the actual game. I’d then pay someone on ‘Fiverr’ or something like that to develop my custom assets how I want them - because that’s how the actual industry works. Game developer companies don’t hire developers that do everything from music composition, to animation, to performance coding… they buy specialised developers that have proven skill in their respective line of work.
That’s because not everyone is as good at something as the next person - it’s better to have your asset development team be asset developers (like you seem to be since you mentioned you can’t really code very well).
AI ultimately can, and will, replace all aspects of game development (as it will in any other developer field (App / Web)). It would maybe struggle with music orchestration since it lacks the ability to feel, but then I suppose if you give an AI enough exposure to music and allowed it to understand what “Moody” music is, or “depressing”, or “happy” etc… it maybe could do that too.
Since you already highlighted your weak points in video game development, I fail to see why you dislike the thought of AI assisting video game development - AI itself could be used by anyone to plug their deficiencies and allow everyone to produce video games. The only people this really damages is the big game companies that currently lack the creativity to make new games with new concepts and just re-hash the same old crap filled with microtransactions.
This is not the issue I have with Unreal Marketplace.
I come to the Epic Marketplace to buy assets crafted by creators. I’m here to trade my money in exchange for the rights to use content that is too time-consuming or costly for me to create.
I get neither of those things with anything copied from an A.I. generator, so I’m forced to use third-party sites to filter out entire categories inundated with AI.
Yes, I think you’re right in arguing that A.I. will reduce the barriers to game creation. That’s probably a good thing, all considered. The end state of all this is probably something akin to the holodeck. However, it also means that the number of released projects will explode. It will be much harder to stand out if there are millions of titles released each day.
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