Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Using AI in Game Development

A topic by Witch Yarns Studio created 41 days ago Views: 419 Replies: 9
Viewing posts 1 to 6
(+4)

Hello everyone,

I'm the sole developer behind Witch Yarns Studio, and I create NSFW games. I have a topic I'd like to discuss with you all, and I'm genuinely curious to hear your thoughts.

When creating visuals for my games, I use AI as a tool. However, I don’t simply take AI-generated images and place them directly into my games. I spend a lot of time refining these outputs, making necessary adjustments, and enhancing them. Despite this, many people seem to criticize me just for using AI, and I don’t fully understand why.

Game development isn’t just about visuals—it’s about coding, storytelling, music, and more. Visuals are just one part of the process. But when I use AI for the visual aspect, it feels like people see me as someone who doesn’t put in any effort. The reality is that I invest a lot of time and energy into ensuring that my AI-generated images meet a certain standard, so I don’t overwhelm my players with low-quality content.

When I mention that I use AI in my visuals, it’s as if people think I’m creating entire games without any real effort—like I just told ChatGPT to "make me a game" and it did all the work.

I support AI usage within certain limits. As an indie developer, I unfortunately don’t have the budget to hire an artist. But AI gives me the chance to realize my vision and bring my creative ideas to life. What am I supposed to do? Should I learn how to draw? If your answer is "yes," then does that mean we should all stop using translation apps and learn every language we want to translate? It's a similar argument.

Of course, working with a professional artist would be ideal and would probably lead to better results. But what should creative people who can’t afford to hire an artist do? I’m a creative individual, and I love making things. AI helps me with that. I don’t want to spend my time dreaming of the day I can work with an artist—I want to create now, despite my limitations.

That’s all I wanted to share. I’m really interested in hearing your opinions.

Best regards, Witch Yarns Studio

(+4)
Despite this, many people seem to criticize me just for using AI, and I don’t fully understand why.

Bias.

There is nothing more to it. Once someone has a certain opinion about something, this opinion puts bias on everything related to the opinion. There are different reasons to not like AI and all have some foundation and are not like believe in flat earth.

You might as well try to understand why someone eats only vegan food and argue how nutritious meat is. Sure, some people try to argue backwards and claim how healthy vegan food is. It isn't. Not without extra effort. And sure enough, meat is not healthy either, just because it is meat.

So in this analogy you have a restaurant that offers steaks and got bad reviews from vegans and do not fully understand why...

Look at pixel art. It looks like crap, compared to high resolution art work. And yet it has fans that shun said high resolution. That example is the other way round. Bias of the fans for their preferred art style, despite it's lack of demonstrable quality. For them quality is not how smooth it looks.

The different reasons to not like AI art are different ethical reasons and about the results. Your methods can fix the result part, but not the other reasons. So you can only attract people, that do not like AI art because it all looks like the same boring template. There is a reason, why people immediatly call out AI art. Theoretically, there should be artists that draw like that, where else could the models have been trained. But practically, you can recognise a lot of AI art at first glance.

Oh, and for an "AI art game" your game has very high ratings. If you have certain things in your game you will have haters. People that do not like your content just go elsewhere, but haters take the time to voice their dislike. Unfortunately for you, AI is such a thing. The silent users that saw more than one game should know this, and expect a certain biased ratings of those haters, so I would not worry too much.

A philosophical question would be, if your game would have more success if you replaced the AI with other things, like a text game. Commissioned art. Self drawn art. Pixel art. 3d renders. Screenshots of models in a 3d engine. There are examples that are successful for all those. While there is a certain trend that the most successful games do not have AI art, that does not mean, that doing away with the AI would make the game more successful. There are lots of unsuccessful non-AI-art games. So it might very well be, that in your current situation, you are delivering the best that is possible with the combination of your skills.

(+1)

Thank you for your comment. I acknowledge that there are many biases surrounding AI art, and I understand that this influences how people perceive it. However, my approach is to view AI as a tool and to focus on producing high-quality content with it. I spend many hours developing each visual, continually working on improving my own skills in the process.

Prejudices exist in every art style, including AI art. When considering the passionate fan base of pixel art despite its low resolution, it becomes clear how important diverse tastes are. However, when I strive to change the perception of AI art, which is often associated with low quality, I find it challenging to overcome these biases.

Using this tool allows me to express my creativity. Additionally, the high ratings of my games come from various factors, not just visuals—story and mechanics also play significant roles. Everything works together to provide players with a satisfying experience.

Ultimately, I am trying to create the best possible output within my existing skill set by utilizing AI. Since I don’t have the budget to work with an artist, I need to find alternative ways to create. I believe it’s essential to respect everyone’s unique creative journey.

Thank you for addressing the ethical concerns regarding AI. I understand that there are valid worries surrounding AI-generated art, particularly concerning how data sets are trained and the potential impact on traditional artists. I think it’s important to acknowledge these concerns. Personally, I see AI as a tool that helps me realize my creative vision within my current limitations. While I can't change the broader ethical discussion, I put a lot of effort into making my AI outputs original.

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts. I always value hearing your perspectives!

When you make an NSFW game, I don’t think you should use AI. If you really want to make your game successful, you should use real digital art instead. Recently, I created some NSFW digital art for a friend, and he used that. I know AI is free, but you need to have a budget for digital art. You should definitely consider using digital art that attracts people. If you’re really interested, we can talk more on Instagram. My Insta username is evelynj_0101

(+2)

Personally, I see AI as a way for GAFAM to boost their electricity consumption by 30% despite our burning planet.

I hope you never find out about crypto currency.

And doing a little AI is nothing compared to running a graphical game like a first person shooter. I tried it once for fun (AI). You can run the models on your desktop rig and put out an image every few seconds. They are simply trying to sell you a new service. As for power consumption, there are also services that try to sell you running the game on their servers and you only stream it.

(2 edits) (+3)

If your answer is “yes,” then does that mean we should all stop using translation apps and learn every language we want to translate?

Actually, localization is a pretty complex job that requires good understanding of not only language but also cultural context, context within a larger body of work, the nuance that specific words & phrasing can bring…machine translation is not a good tool for this, and while it’s one thing for a player to decide to use it to try and understand a script in a language they don’t speak you really shouldn’t use it to “translate” your work–that’s just lying to your customers.

Yeah it's like how retro games used to be translated quite poorly, which led to such things as "all your base are belong to us". 

(+1)

If you’re going to save time and work with AI then it’s probably better to use it for a technical aspect like programming rather than the visuals that everyone will point out and critique 

(+1)

My recommendation is if you can't afford to hire an artist, then look for beginner artists that are looking to get their name out and ask if they want to collaborate. Of course this would only work if the game is free, but using AI images for the finished product isn't a good look due to the fact that AI takes real artist's work and mutilates them in an algorithm. Sure, editing those images isn't as bad as simply chucking whatever Midjourney spits out into Unity, but it isn't great either.