Claire Rogers

Independent Game developer. Coder, Graphics and VR specialist. Previously SIE R&D West, Studio Liverpool. Private Pilot. Photo Credit:

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

Five years ago, I released Air Hockey Arcade for Meta Quest.

Today, I'm excited to introduce its next evolution: Air Hockey XR! 🏒🥽

Built for Mixed Reality, with hand tracking, a full single-player campaign and a whole lot of arcade personality.

Available now on Google Play for XREAL Aura and other Android XR devices, with more XR platforms to follow!

[Samuele Panzeri @SamuelePanzeri]

Use AI or don't use it, everyone working on games should own a copy of "Real-Time Collision Detection". Almost every time I have to reach out for a book to use as reference, this is the one.

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@photonstorm @RetroRacing Completely agree. I love coding, I’ve been doing it for a long time. But now I’m feeling energised, like I was when I first started, on the ST and in my early days at Psygnosis / Sony on PS1 through 3. With AI my ability to create is catching up with my ambition.

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@RetroRacing @photonstorm I think knowing what’s possible really helps, and being able to steer it in the right direction if it goes a little off track. We really are living in such interesting times if you have a coding background!

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@RetroRacing @photonstorm I’ve not tried Claude yet! I suspect I’m going to have to now. I’ve had some great results with Codex, but I’ve not tried reverse engineering existing binaries.

Is that what Claude is doing or was the source code to Bird of Prey (for example) available?

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@photonstorm @RetroRacing I’m absolutely stunned by all this AI assisted porting / optimisation of ST / Amiga games. It’s making me consider breaking my Falcon out to see what Codex can get it to do!

More of this sort of thing!

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

I can absolutely understand wanting recognition and compensation for your work. Your book is legendary, and has contributed enormously to our industry.

I do hope we can find a way to respect creators while still allowing AI to learn from the incredible body of human knowledge we’ve accumulated.

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

As someone who's spent 30 years writing game engines, I'm confused by all the outrage over #AISlop.

Where were you all when Unity and Unreal unleashed #EngineSlop on the world?

You're not a REAL game developer unless you write your own engine! 😉

See how ridiculous that sounds?

1/4

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@Major5965 I have been doing this to various degrees over the course of this year. It’s quite incredible the productivity boost AI gives you.

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@Ashkan_GC Maybe fear is the wrong choice of word, at least if taken in a literal sense. It's lamenting the eventual loss of what I see as an artform in it's own right. How much better does AI have to get before we don't need to decide if something uses SIMD or runs on another thread etc?

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@Donzanoid @Ashkan_GC @SebAaltonen Your opinions are as valid as anyone's, Don. I fear you may be right, though I hope you're wrong. I wrestled with this earlier in the year, but decided to embrace AI. I'm now enjoying working on my own projects as much as I ever did. Doesn't mean AI won't replace me too! 😅

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@Ashkan_GC @Donzanoid @SebAaltonen Yes, I've been working on my own engine and games that are built with it for years. AI is making me massively more productive althought I marvel at the speed of progress @SebAaltonen has been making!

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

Yep, for me, the technology we built was one of the pillars of game development, alongside art, design, sound and music.

Writing an engine was a creative endeavour in its own right.

I know you can build new technology on top of commercial engines, but it’s not quite the same. At least not for some of us.

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

Absolutely, and I’m sure the lawyers will have a field day untangling them!

But technological advances have always raised ethical questions. The cassette recorder, photocopier, camera, even the printing press.

We found ways to accommodate those technologies rather than reject them. Why should AI be different?

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

I agree. I think there are legitimate concerns, but they deserve some perspective.

Humanity spent thousands of years and an extraordinary amount of energy accumulating the knowledge AI now learns from.

And the environmental cost of individual inference is surprisingly modest. Recent research estimates ~0.3Wh for a typical text query.

The huge power demands come from training and serving AI at enormous scale.

I’m not dismissing the concerns, but I think we need to distinguish the cost of individual use from the cost of the entire industry.

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

For the record, I don't actually believe you need to write your own engine to be a real game developer.

That's gatekeeping. And so is dismissing someone's work simply because they used AI.

Tools don't determine the quality of a game. The people using them do.

#AISlop #EngineSlop

4/4

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

And there was a human cost.

As commercial engines took over, those of us who specialised in writing game engines found it increasingly difficult to get work doing what we loved.

Our jobs weren't immune to technological change.

But back then, we were told that it was progress.

3/4

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@RetroRacing Another one I didn’t know about. I always wanted F/A-18 Interceptor which as far as I know never came to the ST! Wild that you can port these game with AI!

[Claire Rogers @GuiltyDogVR]

@fizzychicken I had a bit of a wobble at the start of the year! But I embraced it nonetheless and I’m loving it. But I’m not “working” currently except on my own projects which I’m hoping to monetise. I’m not sure if I’d feel the same way if I was doing this for someone else’s products.