Jaakko Maaniemi

Regular Finn. Family guy and games dude. Founder of Groundpoint Games, developer of Type the World.

[Ben Dickson @bendee983]

I started game development in early 2000s, when you had to write your own 3D engine with DirectX. The generation before us had it even harder, without the hardware abstraction layer that DX provided.

AI is removing the technical hurdles to building games. Having an AI agent write the code for the game engine and mechanics is not AI slop per se, or cheating.

It helps you focus on the creative parts, like the story and characters and design. It will help more people get into game development and shorten the release cycles.

Of course, there will also be a lot of slop and copycat games. But real creators will stand out and be able to build new experiences and personal gaming brands.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@itamiworks Looks like tool use to me.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@Divine_Alear Typing is indeed the easy part. Also a fraction of what creating with AI includes. Try it, you might shed a bit of ignorance and maybe glance yourself looking down on people! That was found to be lame in the 1920s, probably.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@cheaf25master Do you think you ever will?

[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

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@sattyyouneed I don't. I only do small projects 😀. Well my next one is bigger, average game size, and I tried to pre-empt problems by designing and describing the whole, setting the architectural requirements I knew of, and asking Claude what more would make sense.

[John IV @J4GameDev]

Every day the purity test gets more and more strict until nobody passes.

Big Walk is a perfect example of the mob going out of their way to attempt to publicly lynch a small studio in order to push their own agenda. A few lines of code that was fixed as a last resort in order to launch their game and that was enough to incentivize them to start a campaign of hate.

The reality is that it isn't even about gaming. These people revel in tearing others down, they enjoy the chaos it causes, and they get off on putting their boot on the necks of others.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@maskdenier @18decimals They are beginners, so it's very likely their first works are not great. Just like with any other tool. And like always, they'll get better the longer they do it. Some will become great, some not.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@maskdenier @18decimals That's a dishonesty problem, not an AI problem.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@nasestraa What if you type your pain, trauma, feelings, memories, past experiences and even your vision of the future into the prompt?

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@JPStewartWriter Surely people are allowed to sell what they've created, however poor it may be? Poor works have always been available and somewhat problematic for the customer, and that's why there are laws for that. If you refer to piracy, that's another, also controlled matter.

[Nines 🐾🤍 EVIL FOX 🦊 @KitsuraNines]

i watched my husband work incredibly hard, putting in 10+ hours a day to get his video finished for halloween. he used multiple tools, developed different workflows, researched techniques, experimented with different approaches, and went through countless iterations to get things looking the way he envisioned.

i also have friends who spend literal months working on music videos, animated episodes, and other creative projects using AI. they’re not just pressing a button and calling it a day. they’re spending countless hours planning, experimenting, refining, editing, and piecing everything together to bring their ideas to life. just because parts of their process involve AI doesn’t mean all that time, effort, and creative decision-making suddenly cease to exist.

saying AI is inherently lazy or takes no effort completely dismisses the amount of time and work some people actually put into their projects. sure, there are people who type in a simple prompt, accept whatever comes out, and call it a day. but that is not representative of everyone using these tools.

there are people spending hours learning how different tools work, troubleshooting problems, refining results, and figuring out how to achieve very specific creative visions. AI doesn’t magically eliminate the need for creativity, direction, patience, or problem-solving. it can make certain parts of a process easier, but that doesn’t mean the entire process is effortless.

you can dislike AI, criticize how it’s developed, or have concerns about its use without pretending that everyone who uses it is lazy or incapable of putting genuine effort into something.

the amount of effort someone puts into their work isn’t determined solely by the tools they use. you don’t have to respect the medium to acknowledge the time, thought, and dedication someone put into creating something.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@YashHustle_22 Bang on. A lot of people seem to have forgotten human slop, and think AI can only work autonomously. Also that many AI creations seen today are from beginners. Let's see how it looks in a couple of years.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@TomatoKigu There are plenty LLMs trained with open source or licensed material. US law also considers LLM training with legally obtained material fair use as it's transformative enough to not be stealing. So you might not be factual here.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@spiderfritas I create with AI and humans. I vibe coded a game and a human artist made the graphics. It turned out great and was really fun! I'll do it again and encourage everyone interested to try. Ignore the bullying gatekeepers, they like feeling superior more than humans or creating.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@weltszznn Unless you asked everyone, it's unlikely you know. Maybe you're way too confident in an assumption based on your opinion?

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@BenboQuest Many are doing it openly too, which they probably should.

[Jaakko Maaniemi @JMaaniemi]

@jam_etc_art It's almost like tools are about making things easier. Crazy, things must be hard, or I lose my sense of superiority! What then?