#personal soapbox

For the sake of this discussion, let's first set aside all of the legal, ethical, and sustainability issues that currently exist with generative AI. Let's assume that we have a magic solution that will solve all of those problems as they stand.

The big problem that I have with generative AI right now is that it isn't good enough to do senior level work - it still makes too many mistakes, and it makes those mistakes so confidently that it's often difficult to identify what those mistakes are unless the person overseeing the AI's work already has significant expertise in the field. Generative AI is basically a super confident, often mistaken, junior developer that works very very quickly. As such, the kind of roles our magically legal/ethical/sustainable generative AI would supplant are our junior roles.

The main issue I see is one of long term sustainability. We can have our current senior devs oversee generative AI functioning as junior devs and produce a lot of work. However, we're not getting any younger - the senior devs are older and will approach retirement eventually. If there are no more juniors to become seniors, who will oversee the AI once we leave? We'd need to see the AI get to the point where it can start recognizing its own mistakes, correct them, and have a much higher success rate without hallucinations before that could happen. This would absolutely have to happen before enough of the experts in the field have retired so that we can validate the AI's ability to do the work needed. This applies to every field that AI threatens to supplant.

There was a studio named Keywords that actually tried using generative AI to build a video game as an experiment. Keywords is a very famous studio, having co-developed/assisted on many games like Super Mario Bros Wonder, Diablo 4, Alan Wake, COD: MW3 (2023), Starfield, Madden, Skull and Bones, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, and so on. Their takeaway from trying was the same that I have - AI just can't replace talent yet. Generative AI tools absolutely need the expertise of senior developers in order to reach its potential.

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Before I answer, I will preface this with the usual disclaimer - I'm not psychic, I cannot predict the future, I have no inside information and am only speculating. Unless something major changes, I see one of two scenarios happening.

Scenario A: Things continue as they are right now

I'm seeing many cautious and a few good indicators, like a small number of new people getting hired at my studio and the reopening of an internship program. I don't see 2026 as a "good" year, but I feel like this year is where things mostly stabilize and may start turning (cautiously) toward growth again near the end of the year. We still have some axes yet to fall - Ubisoft is still in process of breaking itself apart and EA hasn't gone through with the deal to go private. In Ubi's case, that may have some ripples this year. For EA, I don't expect major changes to happen until a year after the deal goes through (similar to how Activision didn't get hit with the big layoffs until a year after the acquisition was complete). However, aside from these two, the rest of the industry should continue to chug along. I suspect it will be a fairly conservative year, with more content for already-successful games, but not much else.

Scenario B: The AI Bubble pops, taking a large chunk of the American (and global) economy with it

This scenario essentially wrecks the global economy, causing layoffs and cost-cutting measures across the board. Consumer spending drops because people don't have jobs, leading to a cycle of companies cutting costs (more layoffs) and people spending less. We get another recession, the situation sucks for another year or two, and then things stabilize and start growing (slowly) again. The companies most heavily leveraged in AI likely die, AI evolves into more specialized internal tooling and not the kind of big public-facing panacea it's been billed as. Games once again retreat to the safest options for a few years.

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Many creative types see generative AI as a technology with no real redeeming qualities. As such, any use essentially becomes heresy to the orthodoxy. Heretics cannot be tolerated so they must be shamed and excommunicated. In reality, such issues are rarely so black and white; there are often shades and gradients of grey in between. Unfortunately, online discourse is financially incentivized to maximize engagement and rage is one of the most engaging emotions that humans have, so the algorithms naturally select for the most maddening possible posts. That ultimately results in extreme tribalism and makes it difficult to have any kind of nuanced discussion.

Personally, I don't blame game studios (especially independent game studios) from evaluating new tools and making informed decisions on whether and how to use those tools. That's part of producing any new product. If new technologies or tools appear, it developers should evaluate them to see whether those tools are worthwhile. I was basically mandated to do so at my employer in 2024, so I did do some evaluation of AI (circa 2024) as a tool. If you're interested, I wrote out my general thoughts on generative AI in [this old post].

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Let me tell you a completely unrelated story to the question you asked me.

My six-year-old niece desperately wants a talking pet unicorn with a rainbow mane named Elsa to be her best friend. I don't think she's ever going to get a pet unicorn that meets her standards, but that fact doesn't stop her from wanting it. She's also likely to yell mean things at anyone who tells her that unicorns aren't real. How much she wants Elsa or how popular such a pet would be among her classmates has no bearing on how feasible such an ask actually is.

On a completely unrelated topic, I think the intention behind Stop Killing Games is noble and I share the sentiment - I wish there were some way to preserve playable versions of all games.

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I don't think the emotion we feel is bitterness so much as it is a bit of sadness. Prices falling is normal and unavoidable. It is unlikely the games I worked on early in my career could be sold for anything today. I have mixed feelings about Steam sales in general.

I think there is a valid and growing concern among game developers that Steam sales are devaluing games as a whole. Instead of finding a great game at a bargain and appreciating it when playing it, Steam Sales have become this seasonal event where players buy a large number of games that they rarely play. The games we buy are just text lines in the library. There's even a pile-of-shame tracker that tells people how many unplayed games they have in their Steam libraries.

What I care about as a game dev is that players enjoy playing the games I worked on. I feel sad when I think about players who may boot the game up for a few minutes, give up, and throw the game away, never getting to see the work I put into it. I feel sad when I think about the amazing games I got to play that were so formative for my career, and how many players today would ignore them since they're old and cheap. I think that's the real tragedy of Steam sales and the like - if it doesn't cost you anything for a game, there's very little reason to invest yourself into it. We ultimately build games for players to enjoy. Steam sales perversely make it both easier for players to see my work and harder for them to actually enjoy it.

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There's some major questions that you need to answer for yourself.

First and foremost, I think it really depends on what your own goals and responsibilities are. What is it you want to do with your life? Do you have any other major goals outside of your career? Is doing game design professionally what you really want, or would doing game design as an amateur hobbyist be enough? You need to be sure that this is something you want to commit to for years, not just the studying and learning, but also the doing. Remember, getting an entry-level job in the game industry isn't the end of the road but the beginning. Once you get hired, you don't just ride off into the sunset while the credits roll. There's a whole career after that first offer letter, and that kind of career really isn't for everyone.

The second major question you need to ask yourself is "Do I really need to go to school to study game design?" I'll tell you now that I never went to school for game design. The majority of designers I work with didn't go to school for game design. Game design is a field where being self-taught still works just fine, especially if you engage with the game dev community. You can build a game or mod yourself, get it out in front of people, learn from it, iterate on it, and use that as experience to get yourself a job doing it. It is fully possible to learn game design without significant school debt (which will have a large effect on your life as well).

I could go on, but I think this should be enough food for thought to chew on for a bit. Take some time to consider your answer to these questions and about your life. Consider the tradeoffs from making these choices - what you are giving up to move forward with this, especially if you have to take on several thousands of dollars in school debt. If you have further questions, my inbox is always open. I wish you good fortune.

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I only answer the questions that people ask me, not the questions that others might wish someone asked me. If you want me to answer questions about the legitimate complaints fans have, you can always ask. Here are my answers to your questions:

Fans always retain the right to complain about what they do and do not like about the games they play. They can say whatever it is they want and I will always respect their right to ask for whatever they want. Fans do not have the right to expect that the developer or publisher do what they ask - it always remains the decision of the publisher and developer to gather the feedback and decide how to act on it. What the fans get is a value proposition - the publisher offers this game at a certain price and the fans decide whether they feel the game is worth the price. If certain fans do not feel there is sufficient value in the game, they are by no means obligated to buy the game or play the game. In fact, I encourage any player who feels dissatisfied with a game franchise to spend their time and money elsewhere. There are far too many good games out there that don't get enough attention to waste time on a game that isn't meeting my needs.

I think that Game Freak, being joint owner of the Pokemon Company alongside Creatures and Nintendo, generally has plenty of control over their own schedule and destiny. I don't think they are being forced to do this against their will, I think they set what they believe is a reasonable schedule.

I think that player expectation that each successive generation Pokemon game support every pokemon ever made is unfeasible in the long term.

I think that every game release, Pokemon or no, is a delicate balancing act between adding enough new and engaging content and polishing the experience enough to reduce overall player frustration to manageable levels.

I think that players should offer their feedback (especially about the things they dislike), but should not have the expectation their demands will be met.

I think that players always retain the right to walk away from the franchise if they don't feel their needs are being met. I wish more players would exercise that right, rather than continuing to buy the game they dislike. I don't think that's healthy.

I think that the company has the right to make what decisions they want, as long as they are ok with accepting the consequences (financial, social, and otherwise) of those decisions. Most of the time, they are ok with it. I don't recall seeing the Pokemon Company or Game Freak issue an apology for something they did.

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