I mean, I'm not entirely even sure if the slop problem IS a problem at all. Sure it clutters up next fest for the first few days at least, but the Steam algorithm is very aggressive at detective games people don't wanna play. There is a reason Steam marketing gurus tell you that, after launch, you have less than a week to show to Steam that your game has an audience. This is why wishlists became the de facto goal to gather before release. Because those give a small guarantie that there will be people buying day one or not long after launch. If anything, the slop situation is a reassurance. There is so much crap that just by having a coherent and working game will make you stand out.
This. Chris Z had a post (in April or May?) where he showed that the number of games in "Real Steam" has remained fairly consistent through the post-Greenlight era. For all that the barriers to entry have lowered, the number of teams that actually have the chops and follow-through to make a decent game hasn't changed significantly. Which might be a different issue worth looking into - how is it that more teams, with better tools, aren't able to cross that threshold?
@@mandisaw I'll tell you about the issue you mentioned. More teams, with better tools, but dumber and lazier because of these powerful tools. They just don't know what exactly they are doing, they only have the dream and desire about it, but lack of creativity and experience, because the tools do everything, and the result is a slop.
@flamart9703 It's an old programmer joke that the best of us are the laziest - we make the computer do our work for us! 😂 I'll grant that having access to more advanced tools abstracts away important details like CPU architecture, and makes complex graphics attainable. But there's no easy button for making a good game, never has been. If you figure that the amount of good game ideas should've gone up with more ppl in the mix, it'd be reasonable to assume that more of those would end up being made, given broad access to tools. But that hasn't exactly happened. Could be players' bar for "good games" went up as games overall became more common. Could be fewer people can actually finish a long project like a game at all. Or both.
@@mandisaw You may think i'm just being overly philosophical here, but the fact that modern devs are severely lacking in the culture and self development departments has a lot to do with it, imo. It's very difficult to create something that is outside of your scope. One cannot give what he doesn't possess....just look at all the trash even the triple A produce nowadays despite having massive amounts of money....
@@mandisaw Quite simply, making a videogame is very friggin hard. Making easier tools doesn't make it take any less effort as the barrier of entry moves as well.
Synty catching strays... I always thought of them as pretty solid low poly assets to get you over the bump of prototyping and actually having something to visually represent your game. Yeah, learning post processing and prettying it up is a good thing to do, but I wouldn't necessarily call people out for not doing so... Idk... My point is Synty is pretty cool and certainly has it's place in my heart!
I went through about 750 games part of NextFest, and like probably around 600 of them were so low quality. It was very clear many were made with AI (with no care to use it well), others were made with the least amount of effort and didn't provide something interesting/unique, others were trying to ride the "hype" train especially for roguelikes/roguelites - for some reason EVERYTHING has to be rogue-like/lite these days, even if the combination doesn't actually work, or if the game is just bad.
Everything has to be roguelite because people like Chris claim you HAVE to follow the trend or your game is guaranteed to fail. The trend is roguelites, so everyone makes a roguelite.
@@firstlast6796 The market encourages the slop. Their asset flip streamer bait throwaway game is way more successful than the games they put effort into.
@@nidungr3496 True enough, but then that "effort" was misused. Because quality games will always outperform slop in the long/medium term, so if your "quality" game can't outperform total garbage, then it probably isn't that high quality.
@@nidungr3496 Effort is not an automatical quantifier of quality. Even they admit the first game was garbage....you also have to take into account that the marketing plan for the asset flip was way better, so it's an unfair comparison.
At 7:00 ish where you talk about synty and just plopping it in I completely agree.. one thing I enjoy doing with them is throwing them back into blender and subdividing them and throw some post and shaders.. completely changes it up for the better, also tailoring the colors.. the only thing though is that it's mad time consuming.. so flesh out your game before you do it
9:50 "so bad that it basically becomes unmarketable" ngl it hurt a bit to have my game shown in that moment 😅 It *has* come a long way visually since the trailer roasting stream though so that was a good wakeup call. Better to make another trailer when the game is good enough looking to hold its own. You only get to make one first impression.
Damn it looks good tho, all it needs is screenshake, a bit more saturation on the post processing(lessen the bloom just a little bit) Also if you can make the animations more snappier. Hope it helps
it looks unfinished, yes, but I didn't think it looked "unmarketable" by any means. It looked neat! Keep in mind, this guy advocates for mediocre AI art IN HIS CAPSULE IMAGE, as in the very first thing people see! Just a huge red flag that signifies you probably shouldn't put too much weight into his aesthetic taste.
I am using Synty assets for my game, the reason I am using them is so I have some art to show people what I am going for in-terms of the world looks. It is easier to sell people on an idea with basic art then just have a block-out scene. When I go further in my process of the game, I will probably hire or team up with an artist to help me with the artistual side, because I personally suck at it. I do totally agree that people can't expect to skip the artistical side of the process by just using Synty Assets and call it a day, that is just lazy.
Just make a game (or at least try very hard) that you, yourself would pay the price to play it. Would you purchase the game you made, if that was made by somebody else? That is the criteria for me to determine if the game is slop or not.
Well... yes, I agree. But should you still block the game from being released and raise the bar for newcomers even if they ARE aware of it and plan to release a free to play game? I am curios...
How to Elevate above Slop? Don't be Slop. Like, if you have a good game, get a decent number of eyes on it, and have good marketing for the game your making, you'll out perform slop immediately. Slop doesn't worry me. I've never seen a good game, out paced by slop. The algorithm is pretty good at bringing the cream to the top while making the slop drown.
Honestly, most of the time I don't check out games because they just don't look appealing or worth the time. I usually avoid games on any platform if they look like they will just be cool for 10 mins then I never play it again. Oh boy, if a game uses lazy ai generated stuff then im outta that game. To avoid slop looking games, then just don't make it slop tbh. Remember, graphics and gameplay should be equally worked on (graphics as in consistent artstyle, not just gta 6 fancy!) and visual and audio should be equally worked on too.
Also, one of the most annoying ads on youtube right now is a mobile game that is pure AI. And it LOOKS like AI. Like, the clothes are constantly changing each frame, limbs through body parts, etc. But it has high DLs and ratings. It prob made a killin appealing to the gooner audience. Unfortunately just how things are now. I'm personally against AI for a lot of reasons but it is just a tool. And with all tools, there are people who abuse and misuse it. Do what you need to of course. But the slop is a problem and the people being elitist, on both sides, aren't helping.
I've made what feels like a decent game and I've got plenty of experience, but I've only gotten one review and I'm pretty sure steam has buried it by now. I feel my main issue is marketing currently. I'm hoping to pull it back by advertising big content updates though. Also you havent linked the capsule art in the description
I agree that AI is mainly tool and it's all about how that tool is being used. I like to use AI when I need inspiration. For example, I let AI draw a bunch of armor pieces. Then I pick the decent looking ones and then proceed to redraw everything in my style.
no slop game has ever buried a truly good game. the market evens itself out ... calling for devs to stop releasing shlop is only the concern of other mediocre developers
Sometimes is Steam the only option to release a game that is bigger than 10GB. Games or just demo versions that was make with Unity or Unreal could easy become too big for many other sites. :(
But that means you need to revisit your build-optimization. Folks don't pay enough attention to all those boring, but important project-config settings.
@@mandisaw Sometimes it's not possible to optimize, some 3d models comes only with detailed textures. Just a simple game with only 20 different Metahumans can easy become huge.
@paluxyl.8682 Metahumans are a trap if you don't know the basics of 3d. You should learn about high-poly vs low-poly, retopology, LODs, billboarding. Which textures can be low-res or high, how you can be more efficient with shaders or PBR settings, does your game even need to be PBR-based or can you work with something less intensive (e.g. bumped diffuse = just color & normal maps). You don't have to become an expert at modeling or texturing, or even shader-coding. But you need to know at least how these things impact your game, and what adjustments you will need to make. Using assets just takes most of the creative-artistic load off, you still have to do the job of a technical artist.
@@mandisaw I know that the Metahumans are not so good, that's reason why I hope that one day we will be able to use the UEFN metatahumans in the normal Unreal too because they are just arround 30mB.
@paluxyl.8682 That's still quite large. Maybe if you're learning the basics, just use flat-color or diffuse-textured low-poly models instead? Get comfortable with that first, then you can do cool things with more complex models & shaders. Walk before you run, and all that :)
There's also a lot of laid-off devs putting out demos to recruit interest for funding. So some of that 3200 might look amazing, but have no chance at becoming a finished game. As for AI, marketing art needs to be layered and consistent so you can make variants for diff storefronts, sizes, locales, etc. AI needs time to make stuff that's good, and it still struggles with consistency. You can't quite work to spec the way actual Ad creative requires. That said, I'm sure it's already being used to churn out all the A-B tests any big studio could want, so that may become the de facto standard, which is chilling 😢
What you've basically just said in this video is that it's okay to use AI generative art. Artists be damned. Quality be damned. "Poor Interns" be damned. Rather than budget the game correctly and have a schedule that allows for actual people to work on your game you'd rather save the money, not bother with the time investment, and just dump the task onto an intern with genAI software. As developers we need to be better than this. Generative AI is a tool, but it's one built on theft and lies, specifically theft from those artists that you're not opting to not pay because "save money" and "save time". Or you can budget better, stop spending money on wasteful ventures, and schedule your development on a more realistic time table. You know, things that developers have been doing successfully for decades now without the crutch of generative AI "tools". On the subject of not having the skills necessary to make art. This is such a disingenuous argument. You can always learn how to make the art, just like artists can always learn how to program. Will it be difficult? Maybe, but at least you'll have the integrity to say that you did the work making your product exponentially more valuable. Taking the easy way out cheapens everything you do, and using gen AI compromises the integrity of all of your work. So you "asset flip" the gen AI art, okay, you hide the fact that you use it. What's to say that you don't hide the fact that you use chat gpt for your code? Or that your dialogue isn't slightly modified gen AI voice acting? Or that your script for the narrative isn't gen AI? Or that the level design blueprints aren't gen AI? At that point you open yourself up for scrutiny on all levels and ultimately can't be trusted to not use gen AI on all points of the development process. You sell out on your integrity for 8 bucks a month just so that you can not pay an artist to make your capsule art. Criticizing devs for being too lazy to learn generative AI tools is INSANE, bro. That's literally the whole reason you're using gen AI in the first place is because you're either too lazy or too cheap to do it yourself or pay someone who knows how. Massive hypocrite in saying this. Just blatantly being a hypocrite here. 'You need to be competitive in the market, and in order to do so use AI generative software that's built on theft and lies because it's easier to do and you're too lazy to learn new skills or too cheap to pay those who weren't too lazy to learn new skills.'
I kindof get what he is trying to say, but yeah, I feel like its hypocritical to tell people to learn how to use AI because you don't know the fundamental skills yourself. If you understand good design and get feedback from people, that will result in a similar output that is more what you had envisioned, rather than using AI. But it's not easy to do it all yourself and requires more effort. Its easier to learn how to use AI and tweak it. Unless you actually dive into the actual framework of the code, which I also doubt most people even bother with. Its hard to actually do everything yourself. And I get why people want to believe that using AI is a needed skill more and more. They want to justify why they arent learning the fundamental skills because it's not "needed" anymore. And most of the time AI seems to be used because people tend to overscope their projects or make some cash grab. And even if it does produce what you want, I don't get how people have the moral justification to say "they" made it. Even if you are self sustaining, and you primarily use ai, at what point is it unreasonable to expect people to pay you for something you did not primarily contribute to? That's the big question, especially as AI gets more convincing to be passed off as "human". I also know that people say that nothing is original. But there is a distinction in how you go about creating stuff normally, and with "assistance" from AI, even if its just a "stupid" moral justification based on ethics. I'd rather feel like I actually accomplished something that I can be proud of, and if that is my downfall then I'm not sure if there would be a place I would want to work where individual contributions dont matter. It has to due with respect towards ourselves and others AI can be improved if you fine tune the output and know what your doing, but I don't get why these people do that other than a pure technical necessity due to a lack of skills or funding. Or some low quality "AI Game". And again, people tend to overscope their projects, which they try to "fix" with AI. For me, it takes away why I even make games. The way I think about it is that AI will only get better, but your fundamental skillset won't. Unless if some brain chip or something crazy does that, and at that point, I would be worrying about a lot more lol. Until then I'd rather just continue to develop my skills to create what I want, knowing that It was made because of my hard effort. Because even if AI was completely ethical, and the job market solved for everyone, it just takes away that feeling of contribution and accomplishment for me. I want to work for a goal to express my ideas, not have it handed over to me. Reminds me of the Walle movie.
I don't understand how someone can shout out a list of artists and then in the next few seconds be like "also you can just use ai and save money by not hiring these people" and not get how shitty that is. I don't think this channel really values the "creative" part of creating a game. This channel advocates for the slop.
@@marlenebarbosa4386 No. You're told to make short dev cycle games, if you make shit slop instead, thats on you. Means you arent either breaking the game down enough, or releasing in the wrong place.
@@ryuusaisaiKeeping your scope small makes a lot of sense. However, this channel advocates for like a MONTH dev cycle sometimes. Sorry (unless you're VERY lucky) you aren't going to make an interesting game in a month. Can you? Sure! Are you likely to? PROBABLY NOT. The most likely outcome is just something boring and way too simple. This channel ultimately doesn't seem to care about the actual experience of playing the game, just that the game is shipped. Not once have I heard this guy talk about the fun or joy of gaming. He just wants to make shovel-ware and justifies it as necessary because "the next one will be better". The final straw for me is this video. He talks shit about people using quality purchased assets and then uses AI to make a boring af capsule for his game?! He talks about a slop problem after MULTIPLE videos of him encouraging people to make abysmally simple and ugly games. Just embarrassing shit. I don't think this guy is in the right industry, he should be selling baubles on amazon and not games if he's only concerned with volume and not quality.
Even looking at massively successful titles: some of the mechanics are baffling in how bare bones they function compared to older games. Bugs, lag, and glitches are rampant. Optimization is not a massive consideration. Multithreading and multiprocessing are underutilized. Too much focus on graphical fidelity over stability. Letting error flags pile up by rushing the coding process. And these are AAA and AA hit titles we're talking about. Honestly, if you focus on tapping into the available power of a system, you create a cascade of positive effects for including room for new content, bigger scope of area, possibly allowing the netcode to run lighter loads and become more responsive, more things on screen at once, more things that can be kept track of in the background. We're at the limit of what we can brute force through a computer. It's time to trim the fat from the code and assets and return to form. It's so easy to succeed from the looks of it. If you release something that's even stable and complete at launch, you slap a $20 price tag on it, and you're suddenly game of the year. Double the content with an expansion pack sized DLC and you're a legend. No microtransaction, no ads, no mandatory online. As long as those boxes are checked, an indie can hit platinum sales. I'm trying to get there to test my theory. Kinda hard to program out of a tent with a computer rocking a 2gb graphics card, but I need 4gb just to run the software for creation. So it's all just research on the phone until I'm in a new place and back on my project.
I'm also a firm believer of that theory, if you can even call it that with all the evidence we have at this point...but i've also got a long way to go until i can grab this massive opportunity the devs are calling "the hard times" of indie gaming.
@@eduardobarboza9499 Yeah, it's a long path. Lots of hats to wear. I just got done brushing up on music theory for soundtracks. I'm approaching the point where I'm going to have to put my nose to the grindstone and get good at my last hurdle. Math...
Hopefully I don't contribute to this slop, lol. Seriously though, I am a little bit concerned about trying to stand out in the ocean of AI asset flips.
If you're someone who takes the easy route and cuts corners and doesn't put the effort in today, the you of tomorrow will do the same. That's the real problem with AI: not the AI itself, the lack of effort when you use it. You can say "I don't have the art skills, I'm not going to bother" but then you'll never have the art skills. Unless you're working on a team, it's your game. Not the artist's game, it's YOUR game, and you have to instruct the artist on what to draw, whether the artist is you or someone else. You could also say "I don't want to do art because I'll just so a simple pixel art style" but the fact remains that an artist can develop and design a simple and minimalistic artstyle that's effective far better than someone with no art skills can. Every time you give up and reach over to the 'generate image' button, you're not just missing an opportunity to learn, you're reinforcing that laziness so that your future self will continue to be lazy as well, deeper down the rabbit hole until you fade into the wall of steamslop like everyone else. JUST DO IT MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE
As an artist who has already been negatively affected by AI expansion, I can say that AI is a tool, but primarily a tool that kills human creativity and make people dumb and lazy. A tool of greedy bastards who are willing to flood the entire world with AI slop just for a few more bucks and no effort. Do you want to live in a world flooded with slop? Anyway, I'll be optimistic and say - Happy swimming in the world of your slop! :)
I very much disagree about your Ai view. If things keeps on going on more and more would switch to Ai which will leave Artist jobless and Programmers soon would follow the jobless path too. Art is a major part of human history, culture and how we express ourselves if most of our art were to Ai generated art will loose its value and respect as humans have a deep respect and interest for talent , hard work and skills Conclusion: Ai generated Things are very harmful towards the gamedev profession. If you are unable to do the bare minimum and learn to create assets for yourself or hire people or Community made assets for that then I think gamedev is not for you and you should look into other professions. I Hope you change your minds about Ai Generation
Don't bring up that fearmongering nonsense if you want a reasonable discussion. You are just trying to play off fear and other emotions, appeal to nature etc, instead of pausing to think how the AI can actually be used and what it means for the industry and game production process.
@@mercai I Do Think Ai is a helpful tool and is very useful but there is not much positive to be said about Ai Generation as stated in my previous post.
@@thefebo8987 Just like how camera stopped people from painting & drawing. Just like how 3d printing stopped people from sculpting. Just like how internet made magazines disappear. Just like how television killed radio. Or wait... no? I think everything i listed still exists. People who love to do art are not going to stop doing art just because AI exists. Yes there might be less money (or the competition is tougher) but hobbyists and niche professionals still exist on every field mentioned. Thus AI is not going to kill indie dev nor artists. It might filter out people who do it for money (altho there still will be people who can monetize their hobby - just like in every field mentioned previously) but people who do it for passion are gonna stay.
@@KummoDeveloper your examples don't work. AI is not another medium. It is a replacement of the human, not of the medium. I'm also not talking about hobbyists or niche. This will exists but they will not make enough money and they will need to work other jobs. We need a anti-AI movement. All the big platforms like steam will probably embrace the AI--way but a few will not allow AI if they see enough people who don't want to see any AI crap in their games.
@@thefebo8987 if your artist identity is to be a pen, sure it looks like that, it's also a painfully reductive way to see art. Art is about expression, selecting the right expression in the infinity of possibility is the real job of artist. Therefore ai is a liberation, it multiply an artist identity to express himself. And you are right, the market is currently locked by big corporation using artist as pen to make money, and toss the pen when it's empty. Their power from having the resources to tell people what to do and what not to do, favoring money making slop. Ai remove the need for resources, hence, the market, locked by corporation, will collapse but in favor of artistic expression, making corporation obsolete. Think of all the movie, art, that couldn't be done because you would need the resources from big corporation, and they wouldn't let you make them. That's the next market, not slaving for a greedy boss who don't like art and has bad taste.
@@timmygilbert4102as an artist also, i get it. There's so much stuff to create from whole cloth when making a game, BUT a huge part of art is working within your limitations. If you cant achieve your current scope with your current resources then you should rethink your scope well before reaching for the AI "easy button". AI looks cheap and generic. Even if you can't make things to the fidelity you might like, anything YOU make will have more personality than AI slop.
The way I see it, you need to use every tool to your advantage. Use ai to prototype dialogue etc, for assets ill often buy packs e.g i bought some work bench tools (drills, spanners, etc) and just retextured them for my art style. Every time you try to be an elitist about using these tools, have a good hard think about how much you hate your day job.
@HarrisonVogl why do you think people who make their own art hate their job? I would assume people that dont care enough to make anything hate it. How is it elitist to expect artists and programmers to make their own assets and code? I dont get it, if you just want to let ai do everything, why do you even want to make a game? what do you get out of that?
AI can't make anything better than generic & average without a lot of time and effort poured in to refine it. At that point, it's more time-efficient (and possibly money-efficient) to just pay someone who's actually skilled. Or become that skilled person yourself. Books are free at the library, no monthly sub required
Many players will immediately skip any game that they know uses gen AI (Even if it looks good). I think soon there will be an option to filter them out of your steam results completely. This will be a good day.
The lack of respect for artists is never shocking, just immensely disappointing... Artists supported the indie dev community for decades but sure use the water wasting picture generator and stab us all in the back I guess.
Honestly I started game dev when unity came out but quit fast.. AI got me back into it and I saw quickly how it isn't all that people claim it to be.. so we're still out there! what AI has done for me is make game dev more accessible for me.. I have used some AI assets for prototyping but if I were to go into production I would need somebody to at minimum clean up the geometry and textures, which at that point just remake the model..
As a professional artist, I don’t get the hate for ai. We have all this new technology to make our work easier. Clinging to old methods and charging more for doing things the hard way will only hurt your own career in the long run.
@@clifforderskineart As a professional artist, I want to do the drawing part. I want to come up with the concepts. I want my work, to be MY work. I want AI that is NOT built off the stolen work of millions of people. It's really not hard to understand at all actually.
@@Iamjake1000 Part of the enjoyment is creating the piece. Not cleaning up some random AI output. You can get something out of it sure, but is it actually DESIGNED well? Probably not, which is where actual artists come in. If good enough is okay for you then just don't waste artists time playing an art janitor for you and be happy with your Frankensteined artwork
@@domsharpe5936 I get that you enjoy the process of creating art, but the reality is clients pay for results, not how the work gets done. AI is just a tool that helps speed up workflows, and it doesn't replace the creative input of an artist. If someone can deliver high-quality work faster and more efficiently with AI, clients will go with that. Refusing to adapt won’t change this, it'll just limit opportunities for you while others evolve with the industry. It’s not about abandoning creativity, it’s about staying valuable in a competitive market.
Instead of complaining about AI, start using AI. The key to making money on Steam is to spam out on-trend games, so why not use AI to make them for you?
"instead of complaining about litter, just throw your garbage on the ground also!" such a brain-dead take, but from an AI art evangelist that's pretty normal lol
@@nidungr3496 you aren't making any money from AI slop either buddy, your just in comment sections licking the boots of thieving multi-billion companies for some reason lol
i dont really see slop on steam or in my discovery queue, i so i beleive that if i just make a quality game and market effectively i should do fine. the only thing i could foresee changing is maybe steam adjusts wishlist requirements if these slop games find a way to game the system, but otherwise what they have filters them pretty good. im not very concerned
I don't know...with games like Futanari Sex Adventures coming out, I don't know if I'll be able to compete...
Add some tentacle
"I'm a game dev"
"Oh, what engine did you use?"
"Midjourney"
accurate
😂😂😂
Worse than slop
I mean, I'm not entirely even sure if the slop problem IS a problem at all. Sure it clutters up next fest for the first few days at least, but the Steam algorithm is very aggressive at detective games people don't wanna play. There is a reason Steam marketing gurus tell you that, after launch, you have less than a week to show to Steam that your game has an audience. This is why wishlists became the de facto goal to gather before release. Because those give a small guarantie that there will be people buying day one or not long after launch. If anything, the slop situation is a reassurance. There is so much crap that just by having a coherent and working game will make you stand out.
This. Chris Z had a post (in April or May?) where he showed that the number of games in "Real Steam" has remained fairly consistent through the post-Greenlight era. For all that the barriers to entry have lowered, the number of teams that actually have the chops and follow-through to make a decent game hasn't changed significantly.
Which might be a different issue worth looking into - how is it that more teams, with better tools, aren't able to cross that threshold?
@@mandisaw I'll tell you about the issue you mentioned. More teams, with better tools, but dumber and lazier because of these powerful tools. They just don't know what exactly they are doing, they only have the dream and desire about it, but lack of creativity and experience, because the tools do everything, and the result is a slop.
@flamart9703 It's an old programmer joke that the best of us are the laziest - we make the computer do our work for us! 😂 I'll grant that having access to more advanced tools abstracts away important details like CPU architecture, and makes complex graphics attainable. But there's no easy button for making a good game, never has been.
If you figure that the amount of good game ideas should've gone up with more ppl in the mix, it'd be reasonable to assume that more of those would end up being made, given broad access to tools. But that hasn't exactly happened.
Could be players' bar for "good games" went up as games overall became more common. Could be fewer people can actually finish a long project like a game at all. Or both.
@@mandisaw You may think i'm just being overly philosophical here, but the fact that modern devs are severely lacking in the culture and self development departments has a lot to do with it, imo. It's very difficult to create something that is outside of your scope. One cannot give what he doesn't possess....just look at all the trash even the triple A produce nowadays despite having massive amounts of money....
@@mandisaw Quite simply, making a videogame is very friggin hard. Making easier tools doesn't make it take any less effort as the barrier of entry moves as well.
Synty catching strays... I always thought of them as pretty solid low poly assets to get you over the bump of prototyping and actually having something to visually represent your game. Yeah, learning post processing and prettying it up is a good thing to do, but I wouldn't necessarily call people out for not doing so... Idk... My point is Synty is pretty cool and certainly has it's place in my heart!
I went through about 750 games part of NextFest, and like probably around 600 of them were so low quality. It was very clear many were made with AI (with no care to use it well), others were made with the least amount of effort and didn't provide something interesting/unique, others were trying to ride the "hype" train especially for roguelikes/roguelites - for some reason EVERYTHING has to be rogue-like/lite these days, even if the combination doesn't actually work, or if the game is just bad.
Everything has to be roguelite because people like Chris claim you HAVE to follow the trend or your game is guaranteed to fail. The trend is roguelites, so everyone makes a roguelite.
3/4 of this rougelikes are bullet haven or vampire survivors clones, with characteristic choose 1 from 3 powerups screen
All because of "muh streamability" bandwagon by the marketers
@@nidungr3496 TRUE
Well everyone does says "release games, your follow up games will be better" so people listen...
I know, right? This channel encourages the slop imho
@@firstlast6796 The market encourages the slop. Their asset flip streamer bait throwaway game is way more successful than the games they put effort into.
@@nidungr3496 True enough, but then that "effort" was misused. Because quality games will always outperform slop in the long/medium term, so if your "quality" game can't outperform total garbage, then it probably isn't that high quality.
@@nidungr3496 Effort is not an automatical quantifier of quality. Even they admit the first game was garbage....you also have to take into account that the marketing plan for the asset flip was way better, so it's an unfair comparison.
+ the same devs praise AI. AI will make it 10x worse in the near future.
The one with the recipe grannie looked fun though haha!
Thank you. Can playtest it and see soul and fun under these other told topic❤
At 7:00 ish where you talk about synty and just plopping it in I completely agree.. one thing I enjoy doing with them is throwing them back into blender and subdividing them and throw some post and shaders.. completely changes it up for the better, also tailoring the colors.. the only thing though is that it's mad time consuming.. so flesh out your game before you do it
Hey Marnix, thanks for your knowledge... You can sleep now, it's alright! ❤
9:50 "so bad that it basically becomes unmarketable" ngl it hurt a bit to have my game shown in that moment 😅
It *has* come a long way visually since the trailer roasting stream though so that was a good wakeup call. Better to make another trailer when the game is good enough looking to hold its own. You only get to make one first impression.
I like gameplay so I was actually excited for your game! Visuals do go a long way, looks like you need a 3D artist on the team. Good luck!
Tbh your game was interesting to me, hadn't seen it before this video but seeing the timestamp again I recognized it, we need more Mecha games!
Damn it looks good tho, all it needs is screenshake, a bit more saturation on the post processing(lessen the bloom just a little bit)
Also if you can make the animations more snappier.
Hope it helps
@@zorochii YES
it looks unfinished, yes, but I didn't think it looked "unmarketable" by any means. It looked neat! Keep in mind, this guy advocates for mediocre AI art IN HIS CAPSULE IMAGE, as in the very first thing people see! Just a huge red flag that signifies you probably shouldn't put too much weight into his aesthetic taste.
I am using Synty assets for my game, the reason I am using them is so I have some art to show people what I am going for in-terms of the world looks.
It is easier to sell people on an idea with basic art then just have a block-out scene.
When I go further in my process of the game, I will probably hire or team up with an artist to help me with the artistual side, because I personally suck at it.
I do totally agree that people can't expect to skip the artistical side of the process by just using Synty Assets and call it a day, that is just lazy.
Just make a game (or at least try very hard) that you, yourself would pay the price to play it. Would you purchase the game you made, if that was made by somebody else? That is the criteria for me to determine if the game is slop or not.
Well... yes, I agree. But should you still block the game from being released and raise the bar for newcomers even if they ARE aware of it and plan to release a free to play game? I am curios...
Another really good video! Was wondering though, could you link that resource to connect to a capsule artist? That's really handy.
How to Elevate above Slop?
Don't be Slop.
Like, if you have a good game, get a decent number of eyes on it, and have good marketing for the game your making, you'll out perform slop immediately.
Slop doesn't worry me. I've never seen a good game, out paced by slop. The algorithm is pretty good at bringing the cream to the top while making the slop drown.
I love hearing others accepting ai in certain aspects of game development.
Honestly, most of the time I don't check out games because they just don't look appealing or worth the time. I usually avoid games on any platform if they look like they will just be cool for 10 mins then I never play it again. Oh boy, if a game uses lazy ai generated stuff then im outta that game.
To avoid slop looking games, then just don't make it slop tbh. Remember, graphics and gameplay should be equally worked on (graphics as in consistent artstyle, not just gta 6 fancy!) and visual and audio should be equally worked on too.
some good points, i just hope you will follow your own advice when you eventually release ANOTHER game of yours :D
capsule art directory link?
Nice to show thomas some love for his tutorial ❤
What's the name of the place that he said is more suited to hosting these lesser quality games? It sounded like Isreal.
itch.io -M
Also, one of the most annoying ads on youtube right now is a mobile game that is pure AI. And it LOOKS like AI. Like, the clothes are constantly changing each frame, limbs through body parts, etc.
But it has high DLs and ratings. It prob made a killin appealing to the gooner audience. Unfortunately just how things are now.
I'm personally against AI for a lot of reasons but it is just a tool. And with all tools, there are people who abuse and misuse it. Do what you need to of course. But the slop is a problem and the people being elitist, on both sides, aren't helping.
image generation is especially egregious imo because of all the art theft and the insane environmental impact
They're going to hate you for telling the truth...
I've made what feels like a decent game and I've got plenty of experience, but I've only gotten one review and I'm pretty sure steam has buried it by now. I feel my main issue is marketing currently. I'm hoping to pull it back by advertising big content updates though. Also you havent linked the capsule art in the description
Whoops, added the link. -M
I agree that AI is mainly tool and it's all about how that tool is being used. I like to use AI when I need inspiration. For example, I let AI draw a bunch of armor pieces. Then I pick the decent looking ones and then proceed to redraw everything in my style.
This is how it should be used. Or for a guidance on direction on where to go with the game in the pre-alpha testing stage.
There are thousands of non AI sources of armor in the Internet and they look better. Don't fall for it.
no slop game has ever buried a truly good game. the market evens itself out ... calling for devs to stop releasing shlop is only the concern of other mediocre developers
Lust Godess, badly rated AI generated gatcha slop, yet it was the front page of Steam for days. -M
Sometimes is Steam the only option to release a game that is bigger than 10GB.
Games or just demo versions that was make with Unity or Unreal could easy become too big for many other sites. :(
But that means you need to revisit your build-optimization. Folks don't pay enough attention to all those boring, but important project-config settings.
@@mandisaw Sometimes it's not possible to optimize, some 3d models comes only with detailed textures.
Just a simple game with only 20 different Metahumans can easy become huge.
@paluxyl.8682 Metahumans are a trap if you don't know the basics of 3d. You should learn about high-poly vs low-poly, retopology, LODs, billboarding. Which textures can be low-res or high, how you can be more efficient with shaders or PBR settings, does your game even need to be PBR-based or can you work with something less intensive (e.g. bumped diffuse = just color & normal maps).
You don't have to become an expert at modeling or texturing, or even shader-coding. But you need to know at least how these things impact your game, and what adjustments you will need to make. Using assets just takes most of the creative-artistic load off, you still have to do the job of a technical artist.
@@mandisaw I know that the Metahumans are not so good, that's reason why I hope that one day we will be able to use the UEFN metatahumans in the normal Unreal too because they are just arround 30mB.
@paluxyl.8682 That's still quite large. Maybe if you're learning the basics, just use flat-color or diffuse-textured low-poly models instead? Get comfortable with that first, then you can do cool things with more complex models & shaders. Walk before you run, and all that :)
There's also a lot of laid-off devs putting out demos to recruit interest for funding. So some of that 3200 might look amazing, but have no chance at becoming a finished game.
As for AI, marketing art needs to be layered and consistent so you can make variants for diff storefronts, sizes, locales, etc. AI needs time to make stuff that's good, and it still struggles with consistency. You can't quite work to spec the way actual Ad creative requires.
That said, I'm sure it's already being used to churn out all the A-B tests any big studio could want, so that may become the de facto standard, which is chilling 😢
Exactly.....exactly 👍
why do you think not using ai for programming is handicapping yourself?
What you've basically just said in this video is that it's okay to use AI generative art.
Artists be damned.
Quality be damned.
"Poor Interns" be damned.
Rather than budget the game correctly and have a schedule that allows for actual people to work on your game you'd rather save the money, not bother with the time investment, and just dump the task onto an intern with genAI software.
As developers we need to be better than this. Generative AI is a tool, but it's one built on theft and lies, specifically theft from those artists that you're not opting to not pay because "save money" and "save time". Or you can budget better, stop spending money on wasteful ventures, and schedule your development on a more realistic time table. You know, things that developers have been doing successfully for decades now without the crutch of generative AI "tools".
On the subject of not having the skills necessary to make art. This is such a disingenuous argument. You can always learn how to make the art, just like artists can always learn how to program. Will it be difficult? Maybe, but at least you'll have the integrity to say that you did the work making your product exponentially more valuable. Taking the easy way out cheapens everything you do, and using gen AI compromises the integrity of all of your work. So you "asset flip" the gen AI art, okay, you hide the fact that you use it. What's to say that you don't hide the fact that you use chat gpt for your code? Or that your dialogue isn't slightly modified gen AI voice acting? Or that your script for the narrative isn't gen AI? Or that the level design blueprints aren't gen AI? At that point you open yourself up for scrutiny on all levels and ultimately can't be trusted to not use gen AI on all points of the development process. You sell out on your integrity for 8 bucks a month just so that you can not pay an artist to make your capsule art.
Criticizing devs for being too lazy to learn generative AI tools is INSANE, bro. That's literally the whole reason you're using gen AI in the first place is because you're either too lazy or too cheap to do it yourself or pay someone who knows how. Massive hypocrite in saying this. Just blatantly being a hypocrite here.
'You need to be competitive in the market, and in order to do so use AI generative software that's built on theft and lies because it's easier to do and you're too lazy to learn new skills or too cheap to pay those who weren't too lazy to learn new skills.'
I don't care, I'm still using NotePerformer.
I kindof get what he is trying to say, but yeah, I feel like its hypocritical to tell people to learn how to use AI because you don't know the fundamental skills yourself. If you understand good design and get feedback from people, that will result in a similar output that is more what you had envisioned, rather than using AI. But it's not easy to do it all yourself and requires more effort.
Its easier to learn how to use AI and tweak it. Unless you actually dive into the actual framework of the code, which I also doubt most people even bother with. Its hard to actually do everything yourself. And I get why people want to believe that using AI is a needed skill more and more. They want to justify why they arent learning the fundamental skills because it's not "needed" anymore. And most of the time AI seems to be used because people tend to overscope their projects or make some cash grab. And even if it does produce what you want, I don't get how people have the moral justification to say "they" made it.
Even if you are self sustaining, and you primarily use ai, at what point is it unreasonable to expect people to pay you for something you did not primarily contribute to? That's the big question, especially as AI gets more convincing to be passed off as "human".
I also know that people say that nothing is original. But there is a distinction in how you go about creating stuff normally, and with "assistance" from AI, even if its just a "stupid" moral justification based on ethics. I'd rather feel like I actually accomplished something that I can be proud of, and if that is my downfall then I'm not sure if there would be a place I would want to work where individual contributions dont matter. It has to due with respect towards ourselves and others
AI can be improved if you fine tune the output and know what your doing, but I don't get why these people do that other than a pure technical necessity due to a lack of skills or funding. Or some low quality "AI Game". And again, people tend to overscope their projects, which they try to "fix" with AI. For me, it takes away why I even make games.
The way I think about it is that AI will only get better, but your fundamental skillset won't. Unless if some brain chip or something crazy does that, and at that point, I would be worrying about a lot more lol. Until then I'd rather just continue to develop my skills to create what I want, knowing that It was made because of my hard effort. Because even if AI was completely ethical, and the job market solved for everyone, it just takes away that feeling of contribution and accomplishment for me. I want to work for a goal to express my ideas, not have it handed over to me. Reminds me of the Walle movie.
If you refuse to use AI, you'll get outcompeted by other devs who do use AI. Nobody cares about artists except artists.
@@nidungr3496 keep telling yourself that, slop maker
I don't understand how someone can shout out a list of artists and then in the next few seconds be like "also you can just use ai and save money by not hiring these people" and not get how shitty that is. I don't think this channel really values the "creative" part of creating a game. This channel advocates for the slop.
-tell people they should make trash, low effort games for money
- steam ends up filled to the brim with slop
Who could have seen This coming???
Short cycle =/= trash, low effort though.
@@ryuusaisai as an Indie dev??it's pretty much synonymous, my dude.
@@marlenebarbosa4386 No. You're told to make short dev cycle games, if you make shit slop instead, thats on you. Means you arent either breaking the game down enough, or releasing in the wrong place.
@@ryuusaisaiKeeping your scope small makes a lot of sense. However, this channel advocates for like a MONTH dev cycle sometimes. Sorry (unless you're VERY lucky) you aren't going to make an interesting game in a month. Can you? Sure! Are you likely to? PROBABLY NOT. The most likely outcome is just something boring and way too simple. This channel ultimately doesn't seem to care about the actual experience of playing the game, just that the game is shipped. Not once have I heard this guy talk about the fun or joy of gaming. He just wants to make shovel-ware and justifies it as necessary because "the next one will be better". The final straw for me is this video. He talks shit about people using quality purchased assets and then uses AI to make a boring af capsule for his game?! He talks about a slop problem after MULTIPLE videos of him encouraging people to make abysmally simple and ugly games. Just embarrassing shit. I don't think this guy is in the right industry, he should be selling baubles on amazon and not games if he's only concerned with volume and not quality.
Even looking at massively successful titles: some of the mechanics are baffling in how bare bones they function compared to older games. Bugs, lag, and glitches are rampant. Optimization is not a massive consideration. Multithreading and multiprocessing are underutilized. Too much focus on graphical fidelity over stability. Letting error flags pile up by rushing the coding process.
And these are AAA and AA hit titles we're talking about. Honestly, if you focus on tapping into the available power of a system, you create a cascade of positive effects for including room for new content, bigger scope of area, possibly allowing the netcode to run lighter loads and become more responsive, more things on screen at once, more things that can be kept track of in the background.
We're at the limit of what we can brute force through a computer. It's time to trim the fat from the code and assets and return to form. It's so easy to succeed from the looks of it. If you release something that's even stable and complete at launch, you slap a $20 price tag on it, and you're suddenly game of the year. Double the content with an expansion pack sized DLC and you're a legend. No microtransaction, no ads, no mandatory online. As long as those boxes are checked, an indie can hit platinum sales.
I'm trying to get there to test my theory. Kinda hard to program out of a tent with a computer rocking a 2gb graphics card, but I need 4gb just to run the software for creation. So it's all just research on the phone until I'm in a new place and back on my project.
I'm also a firm believer of that theory, if you can even call it that with all the evidence we have at this point...but i've also got a long way to go until i can grab this massive opportunity the devs are calling "the hard times" of indie gaming.
@@eduardobarboza9499 Yeah, it's a long path. Lots of hats to wear. I just got done brushing up on music theory for soundtracks. I'm approaching the point where I'm going to have to put my nose to the grindstone and get good at my last hurdle. Math...
Great video, slightly depressing but still 😂
Algo boop
Boopity boop
Hopefully I don't contribute to this slop, lol. Seriously though, I am a little bit concerned about trying to stand out in the ocean of AI asset flips.
I think that's where the capsule and marketing are important. Have to prove you're a human-made, good game 😅
If you're someone who takes the easy route and cuts corners and doesn't put the effort in today, the you of tomorrow will do the same. That's the real problem with AI: not the AI itself, the lack of effort when you use it. You can say "I don't have the art skills, I'm not going to bother" but then you'll never have the art skills.
Unless you're working on a team, it's your game. Not the artist's game, it's YOUR game, and you have to instruct the artist on what to draw, whether the artist is you or someone else.
You could also say "I don't want to do art because I'll just so a simple pixel art style" but the fact remains that an artist can develop and design a simple and minimalistic artstyle that's effective far better than someone with no art skills can.
Every time you give up and reach over to the 'generate image' button, you're not just missing an opportunity to learn, you're reinforcing that laziness so that your future self will continue to be lazy as well, deeper down the rabbit hole until you fade into the wall of steamslop like everyone else.
JUST DO IT
MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE
Old nextfest's i played 50+ demos this nextfest these low quality ai games, low quality simulator games allover the place i only played 5 demo
As an artist who has already been negatively affected by AI expansion, I can say that AI is a tool, but primarily a tool that kills human creativity and make people dumb and lazy. A tool of greedy bastards who are willing to flood the entire world with AI slop just for a few more bucks and no effort. Do you want to live in a world flooded with slop? Anyway, I'll be optimistic and say - Happy swimming in the world of your slop! :)
I very much disagree about your Ai view. If things keeps on going on more and more would switch to Ai which will leave Artist jobless and Programmers soon would follow the jobless path too.
Art is a major part of human history, culture and how we express ourselves if most of our art were to Ai generated art will loose its value and respect as humans have a deep respect and interest for talent , hard work and skills
Conclusion: Ai generated Things are very harmful towards the gamedev profession. If you are unable to do the bare minimum and learn to create assets for yourself or hire people or Community made assets for that then I think gamedev is not for you and you should look into other professions.
I Hope you change your minds about Ai Generation
Don't bring up that fearmongering nonsense if you want a reasonable discussion. You are just trying to play off fear and other emotions, appeal to nature etc, instead of pausing to think how the AI can actually be used and what it means for the industry and game production process.
@@mercai I Do Think Ai is a helpful tool and is very useful but there is not much positive to be said about Ai Generation as stated in my previous post.
If there is no counter movement all the indie devs will get replaced by AI. Not only artists
@@thefebo8987 Just like how camera stopped people from painting & drawing. Just like how 3d printing stopped people from sculpting. Just like how internet made magazines disappear. Just like how television killed radio. Or wait... no? I think everything i listed still exists. People who love to do art are not going to stop doing art just because AI exists. Yes there might be less money (or the competition is tougher) but hobbyists and niche professionals still exist on every field mentioned. Thus AI is not going to kill indie dev nor artists. It might filter out people who do it for money (altho there still will be people who can monetize their hobby - just like in every field mentioned previously) but people who do it for passion are gonna stay.
@@KummoDeveloper your examples don't work. AI is not another medium. It is a replacement of the human, not of the medium.
I'm also not talking about hobbyists or niche. This will exists but they will not make enough money and they will need to work other jobs. We need a anti-AI movement. All the big platforms like steam will probably embrace the AI--way but a few will not allow AI if they see enough people who don't want to see any AI crap in their games.
I can barely afford food, how I'm gonna pay an artist 😂
You will not earn any money in a market flooted with AI crap. It's self defeating.
then become an artist.
@@firstlast6796 I'm already one 💬😂 do you think the workload scale freely?
@@thefebo8987 if your artist identity is to be a pen, sure it looks like that, it's also a painfully reductive way to see art. Art is about expression, selecting the right expression in the infinity of possibility is the real job of artist. Therefore ai is a liberation, it multiply an artist identity to express himself. And you are right, the market is currently locked by big corporation using artist as pen to make money, and toss the pen when it's empty. Their power from having the resources to tell people what to do and what not to do, favoring money making slop. Ai remove the need for resources, hence, the market, locked by corporation, will collapse but in favor of artistic expression, making corporation obsolete. Think of all the movie, art, that couldn't be done because you would need the resources from big corporation, and they wouldn't let you make them. That's the next market, not slaving for a greedy boss who don't like art and has bad taste.
@@timmygilbert4102as an artist also, i get it. There's so much stuff to create from whole cloth when making a game, BUT a huge part of art is working within your limitations. If you cant achieve your current scope with your current resources then you should rethink your scope well before reaching for the AI "easy button". AI looks cheap and generic. Even if you can't make things to the fidelity you might like, anything YOU make will have more personality than AI slop.
The way I see it, you need to use every tool to your advantage. Use ai to prototype dialogue etc, for assets ill often buy packs e.g i bought some work bench tools (drills, spanners, etc) and just retextured them for my art style. Every time you try to be an elitist about using these tools, have a good hard think about how much you hate your day job.
@HarrisonVogl
why do you think people who make their own art hate their job? I would assume people that dont care enough to make anything hate it. How is it elitist to expect artists and programmers to make their own assets and code? I dont get it, if you just want to let ai do everything, why do you even want to make a game? what do you get out of that?
AI can't make anything better than generic & average without a lot of time and effort poured in to refine it. At that point, it's more time-efficient (and possibly money-efficient) to just pay someone who's actually skilled. Or become that skilled person yourself. Books are free at the library, no monthly sub required
Many players will immediately skip any game that they know uses gen AI (Even if it looks good). I think soon there will be an option to filter them out of your steam results completely. This will be a good day.
The lack of respect for artists is never shocking, just immensely disappointing... Artists supported the indie dev community for decades but sure use the water wasting picture generator and stab us all in the back I guess.
Honestly I started game dev when unity came out but quit fast.. AI got me back into it and I saw quickly how it isn't all that people claim it to be.. so we're still out there! what AI has done for me is make game dev more accessible for me.. I have used some AI assets for prototyping but if I were to go into production I would need somebody to at minimum clean up the geometry and textures, which at that point just remake the model..
As a professional artist, I don’t get the hate for ai. We have all this new technology to make our work easier. Clinging to old methods and charging more for doing things the hard way will only hurt your own career in the long run.
@@clifforderskineart As a professional artist, I want to do the drawing part. I want to come up with the concepts. I want my work, to be MY work. I want AI that is NOT built off the stolen work of millions of people. It's really not hard to understand at all actually.
@@Iamjake1000 Part of the enjoyment is creating the piece. Not cleaning up some random AI output. You can get something out of it sure, but is it actually DESIGNED well? Probably not, which is where actual artists come in. If good enough is okay for you then just don't waste artists time playing an art janitor for you and be happy with your Frankensteined artwork
@@domsharpe5936 I get that you enjoy the process of creating art, but the reality is clients pay for results, not how the work gets done. AI is just a tool that helps speed up workflows, and it doesn't replace the creative input of an artist. If someone can deliver high-quality work faster and more efficiently with AI, clients will go with that. Refusing to adapt won’t change this, it'll just limit opportunities for you while others evolve with the industry. It’s not about abandoning creativity, it’s about staying valuable in a competitive market.
AI also thinks you're a tool ;)
Instead of complaining about AI, start using AI. The key to making money on Steam is to spam out on-trend games, so why not use AI to make them for you?
Except, nobody is making money from their (AI) slop.-M
I’m going to complain about AI while releasing games I put effort into lol.
I refuse to support this self-destructive behavior
@@bitemegames Skill issue XD
"instead of complaining about litter, just throw your garbage on the ground also!"
such a brain-dead take, but from an AI art evangelist that's pretty normal lol
@@nidungr3496 you aren't making any money from AI slop either buddy, your just in comment sections licking the boots of thieving multi-billion companies for some reason lol
😂 cool you put Granny on it 01:20. more Promo for me.❤ Genious Marnix
i dont really see slop on steam or in my discovery queue, i so i beleive that if i just make a quality game and market effectively i should do fine. the only thing i could foresee changing is maybe steam adjusts wishlist requirements if these slop games find a way to game the system, but otherwise what they have filters them pretty good. im not very concerned
Stupid bloggers are manipulating a flock of sheep!