AI, Remote Work and Industry Layoffs | 365

[Music] What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of GameDev Unchained, the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle there thereof. I am your host Brandon Fam and with me I know you already see him Ray Graham.
How you doing? What's up? I'm doing good. I'm hanging in there. You know it's all good.
All right. Before we get into it.
All right. Just to remind the good people out there who don't know quick background and then we'll go and talk about the latest in
Sure. Um what am I doing now? I'm CTO of Cornerstone Interactive Studios. Um, so my, you know, my background is gamedev. Been a engine and graphics programmer for many years now, like something like

27 years at this point. And worked on a bunch of different games, NBA Live, NBA 2K, Dead Space, uh, Bioshock 2, uh, that's I think that's where we met each other. um and uh Splinter Cell Blacklist, but also spent like uh nine years at at Unity working on graphics tech and and different engine tech over there as well. So, yeah. Yeah, that that's a short version of it.
Been around the block, please.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Well, I mean, uh we've we haven't talked for a while. There's been a lot that's been going on. Let's just say the last two pre- month. All right. So, if you if you haven't joined us in the segment before, this is where we talk about the latest and greatest. So, let's go right into it. [Music] All right, so this is the round table news episode. Uh, that means that we're

going to talk about the latest and greatest that affects game developers, discussing with game developers such as ourselves and our opinions. again. I guess at this point no one can get aspired, right? Even cancelling is not even a thing. So, it was good. Let's get into it.
Uh,
terrible.
Well, I mean, you kind of led into it. I mean, um, we talked at length last year about this like I mean, I kind of prophesized this crazy swing. I we talked with them over many episodes about what's going on in the industry. I think it's a not even I think this is the new stabiliz we're just going to lose a bunch of people right this is just going to be a slim industry going forward uh you mentioned a bit about far you know we can talk a bit about that
the cloud chamber team
uh your boy Rod Ferguson who's known as

who who uh who's uh whose claim to fame is at at Epic Games, the original Epic Games with Gears of War. He's kind of known as the cleanup guy who makes unshippable games shipped shippable or shipped right uh infamously with the uh Fasha Infinite, right? Where they were in like this development uh loop like five plus years, no end in sight. They brought them in a year later, it's right? high claim commercially, right? Did well, but not well enough to uh succinctly squash the six plus years of development costs, right? Uh Rational Games went on and kind of disperse and created new studio, but then Rob Ferguson is back in the fold again with the Bioshock. kind of hit a Bioshock franchise and cloud chain for funny enough it's actually longer than

the Bioshock Infinite. It's like eight plus at the right when it was kind of first.
No, I can't remember. I can't even remember.
It's a long time like this followup have been in the talks have been
uh it's kind of open out there like
actually actually yeah it was like while I was at Unity was what I heard about it. Right. So, it's it's been Yeah, I think eight eight close to nine years it's probably been in the works.
It's been a long time and it's kind of like a
first branch for how long it takes. Um
yeah,
uh and uh it's kind of continuing the theme where uh you go on LinkedIn and just see a bunch of people that someone networks and hides to you saying that, hey, it's happened again, guys. Guess what? Um and it's it's kind of when I stopped going on like this for that week just to not be depressed.

Um
but I don't know, man. What are your thoughts about all this? I mean, this was happening and then uh like a month ago or something. Was it um which which studio was was the one that kind of closed down?
I mean, Microsoft had a big layoff.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Not news, but they do that every couple months.
But I think Yeah. like you know when we talked about this stuff before I was like you know it's the economic conditions you know and it's you know money is tightened and so people are not spending money um but I think now we're clearly in the in the fear territory now where where folks are just being like super cautious of how they spend their money and and s like I don't want to if it's not like um a sure thing or like a very strong signal that it's going to be a sure thing um no one's trying to make any sort of big bets, right? Um and so

this is where you're seeing these these things happening. I think with like with Cloud Chamber, it's kind of more like, you know, the game is close to being done and so they they kind of got rid of some people that they might not need, right, going forward.
You think it's close? You think it's almost done?
I I said I didn't say almost. I said close, right? And so um and so you don't ask me how I know this, right? But anyway, um so you know, I think that's kind of what it is. It's like Rod Ferguson coming in to to get it over the finish line. Okay, so we don't need all of these people here. You know what I mean? And um and so that's I think that's where some of that like cloud chamber specifically is coming from. Uh but then I think all the other things is people can't get funding, right? because publishers is being really cautious and like and don't really want to make any sort of crazy bets. Even though we say, you know, right now in the industry like we want more creativity and we don't

want more of the same, uh, no one's really willing to fund creativity without a clear signal that that creativity is going to make money, right? Um, and so this is this is what we're we're seeing the results of this and and really I think it's like, you know, folks that are in positions like, you know, like design and production and those type of roles and and art, right, are are like really hurting right now, right?
Yeah. I mean, speaking of that, like um through the Haven, I I don't know if you know any folks that they're they've been around for quite a big splash in 2020. It was one of those co studios that me and you you didn't cash in because everybody was cashing in at that time,
but everybody was getting money. There was just a opposite problem that we're having. Everybody had money
and everybody was giving away money and it was one of those studios. And so to me it was one of the and back then I

think I even commented to you like oh it'll be interesting to see how these kind of pan out
and so recent news of it um you know they had two titles came out this uh like Sunderfold and another game uh Wildgate.
Wildgate. Yeah.
Which I commented on wasn't stupid.
But you know what? You know what though? No. Like I look at Wildgate and like I would play that game.
Would you play it?
I didn't play it, but I would play that game. Like it seems it seems like it it would it would um it would kind of tickle my fancy. Just two things about that. I didn't even know
that that game's out until until I heard the news about it, right? And then when I saw it, I was like, "Oh, this actually looks like I would actually play this." But then I think you know what hurts is like Yeah. you didn't even know it was out. But also the piggyback off of that is it's it's a it's a PVP game only.

Yeah.
Right. And so like the amount of people you have to play with like teambased game um you you really have to have an engaged community um around it that that can support it, right? And then there's costs like running servers and all that kind of stuff on top of that, right? Um, so like I think I wouldn't say it's a bad game or anything like it looks totally like something I would play. I was watching some videos of it and I was like, "Yeah, this looks this looks good actually. It looks fun." Um, but it's just you need to get the player base behind you and and uh for that type of game, a PVP game, uh there's a lot a lot a lot a lot of competition, you know. Um, and for it to be PvP only, you know, it's kind of it's kind of hard.
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of warning against even if you have a ton of experience. I'm talking about explicit founder rating this year.
Mhm.

Without a player base, you know, even you basically starting from zero,
right? uh making a multiplayer game without that inspe but you you were interested didn't even know without caused a major problem when when we're trying to sell units right I mean you're talking about I was looking at the numbers both games were sub 100,000 I think white I uh uh not not not wild 68,000
right which horrific for a game that's been in development with person. All right. Uh they haven't announced any layoffs or cutbacks. I think there were some adjustments obviously that they it spoke to but there just just and and to be fair what you're saying a lot of people who did play it was fine. It's a fun game but it was just one of those questions again. And it's like, is

this the time to kind of any kind of Mitch had gained, right? And um it's just this recurring thing that's been happening.
It's not time to kind of
close down right now. Uh
it's prettyive.
Yeah.
Yeah. I wouldn't say like niche, right? Like, oh, you can't make something niche, right? Yeah.
Um, you have to make something that has a solid player community around it, right? I I think you know what you know what it is like you know the the quote from if you ever watched The Wire, right? I'm I'm going to go off topic. You watch The Wire and there's a you know Cuddy the guy Cuddy uh I think this was like uh season season two or season 3. He gets out of jail. I think it was season three. He gets out of jail and he's like, "Okay, I'm I'm gonna go back to that street life or whatever." And then he gets in the car and and the guy gives him a gun or something like that, you know, go, "Hey, let's go do

something." Yeah.
And then and he's like, "Man, the game done changed." And and then Slim Charles just looks at him goes, "Nah, man. It just got more fierce." Right. So, and so and that's what what what's going on, I think, with the game industry right now is and and with like trying to make something right now. It's there's like a lot more work you got to do because there's a lot more competition. There's a lot more games out um to get those eyeballs to get people engaged and keep people engaged in your game, right? And and I think um a big part of like I think the days of like going silent for five years, six years, seven years, make making a game are just over, right? because like the e the economics in this environment the economics just don't work out you know
I mean it's such a long dev cycle without f
five years

you relate that to hurt five years for anybody and it goes through so much change
it's and if you're looking for I mean what is the target audience for those let's just pick game. I mean, it's our age. We're talking about like post 35 all the way to
Yeah, maybe. But, you know, PvP, people our age don't really play PvP, you know.
Yeah. So, like what what is this age for right now, right? You know, it's it's such a weird it's not what it used to be
10 years ago, right? Where people would
set aside the time to play B7. And I I I think I think I think for certain games like once a year, right? Um I I think well I mean it's not fair, right? Battlefield S. All right. It's a big game. Sure. Right. But Battlefield overall as a series have been taking a seat that many I mean what was the last

fat? 2014, which was
But that's that's why the the one that's coming out now is gonna make such a big splash because it's been a while
and it has EA's marketing machine behind it. And it's a big it's it is the game for EA, period.
It's a good game.
It's the game for EA, right? And so they're just going to pour everything into that thing, right? And so you're going to hear about it everywhere.
Yeah, that's going to have all the news coverage, right? like you know just like indie games cannot you know compete at with that right so like I I can't even compare you know Wildgate to Battlefield right like this is a behemoth right um and I just think you know that's that's what it is right now is like there's these behemoths that are there um but even them even you know like with with the Microsoft layoffs and some other big companies also trimming back they're feeling it too right because some of those behemoth games they come out with like other other AAA sized games, but maybe not a

Battlefield or a Call of Duty, right? And and those also kind of kind of failed, right?
Yeah. It's been in terms of marketing. Yeah. I mean, the two biggest thing that we've been hearing about is of course Battlefield because of this big mark from Bush.
Yeah.
A lot of remakes. All right. This whole week has been about Metal Gear and
Oh yeah, Metal Gear. Well, Mega Gear just just came out, right? Or it's in early It's in early access basically.
Early access. I'm seeing everybody all the playing it,
right? And you know,
I'm the one kind of just like am I betraying because he has nothing to do with it, right? I mean, respectfully,
the game play have kept his name on everything as
Yeah. Yeah,
he's done it. Looks great, man. It's one of my favorite middle gear, so I'm probably going to buy it.
Really?
I think so. I like Snake Eater is the

one of the It's one of my favorites.
Really?
I just thought I always thought it was weird you're like sitting there eating snakes and stuff. Anyway,
I love it.
It's never been done before. Uh I I just felt like up to that point, it was all done in place two and page three. It was the most uh refined control up to everything else was kind of
anyways but that that's been kind of the theme. It's been safe. All right. We a lot a lot of it's always been the sequels remakes. The thing that I am surprised about I thought would blow up more this year would have been the continuation of the smaller game. All right. Cuz last year, the year before, we just kept hearing onslaught of the game from all the way since Fall Guys and all the way through the latest I was like even battle bit remaster, right? Which kind of battlefield like the pixelated Battlefield like all these

games had like this huge steam behind it and then I felt like the last few months it kind of you don't view it as much anymore. Um maybe because that it just happened that back to back there's a lot of death siphons. Um
yeah,
but like I haven't heard anything from that side either. It's been kind of quiet in terms of like games coming out that isn't that isn't a remake and that isn't um sequel.
Well, we just didn't we just have Games Con where a bunch of stuff got announced at Games Con?
I didn't hear anything. What games what game what game popped through your feed that you were like, "Oh, that's one." I mean, a couple of Chinese games. I mean, talked about Wukong, right? Some Chinese games and like Shinobi is coming out and like the Resident Evil game. I guess I guess that's new Resident Evil.
Oh, the the new Resident Evil. But it's a sequel, right? But the res the new Resident Evil was dope, right? But like
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. We're talking about games, right? In terms of threat, right? Yeah.

But I mean, I think what you're saying, like what you're seeing is a little bit of probably the the earlier layoffs and like the lack of being able to find funding for some people.
Yeah.
Right. So then you're not going to see big splashy announcements for weird indie games, right? Because like they're struggling to get money to even make their games, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
So, um, so I think that might be a part of it, too. Yeah. Uh the well the Gamescom just happened uh going really well. I mean I'm look I was looking at the numbers uh gold
um the the biggest thing with it is a global shift right we talked about Wukong the you know Chinese market has always been here
but like the AAA Chinese market kind of
found itself with Wukong
and it it was commented on how interesting to kind of observe that lock grow from that belief and it's bro like

there's like more games that look like Wukong are funny have Chinese coffins instead of cen, right? But like Wukong itself have like branched off to seven like I don't even know what it is like like new content, right? It has like seven different
Yeah, maybe. But but it has a there's a new like game science is making a new game entirely, right? That's in the Kong
universe, which is smart, right? Y
uh welld deserved. Um
but uh if the problems that we're having in the west and we mentioned the spend time is you're not seeing that on and we talked about the spending times with Capcom for example in a year where western studios were closing studios and still closing studios and laying off people. They raised everybody salaries right because they did so well
and are continuing to do so. So, we're seeing that with Japanese companies, Chinese companies,

uh, and basically everywhere. Even Korean companies, I'm seeing a lot of buzz. Um, and you know, it's, um, if it's nothing new, you always attribute it to those teams kind of staying together, right? Um, and, uh, learning, uh, you know, Best 4. Uh, it it it's not magic, right? you know, uh, if our studios on this side aren't going through as many layoffs and people leaving, uh, we would have had that kind of success, I think, right? Um,
yeah,
but also but also at Gamescom like the the ones that made the big the big splash was like, yeah, Anamusha, the new Animusha was was talked about. I know. I'm eagerly waiting for uh Ninja Gayen for
um and then of course uh Silk Song is just blew the lid off everything, right? So um
so like you know like I think even though there might have been not like

some crazy things. I think those are some like strong non crazy AAA games that are that are coming out, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Although they probably have AAA like budgets, but still um because Silkong was in development for like a long time, right? But um but yeah.
Well, let me know your thoughts about this. Right. We're talking about um I mentioned the beginning. I kind of joke about this,
but this permanent job loss and uh we know some friends, you know, and we're seeing posts about like, oh, it's been one year and five months since I've a job. what is the job like you know and uh it's becoming uh a reality that a lot of these people are not coming back um and it's going to be a slim industry booth

another two five years until something some new tech some new breakthrough will create a need for expansion what do you I don't know. I I think I think there's there might be it might be some of that, right? Because I think like in a couple years people are going to realize, oh wait, we don't have enough games, right? And and then there might be some growth, but also I'm also seeing a lot of um I think some people are still being very selective, you know. So people are like I'm looking for especially what I'm noticing is like I'm looking for a lead. This is firsthand people like still rejecting.
I see I know I see I No, I see it in LinkedIn. They're not necessarily rejecting, right? But I see in LinkedIn like I'm looking for senior lead
director and remote, right? And um and I think like the days of remote are are like there's there's a there there's a few

places still doing remote and and I think it's it's more prevalent in the indie scene especially. Um, but that's that that's over, right? It's it's done, right? Um, uh, there's it's it's now a sellers market and and the seller is like pulling way back on on, uh, on anything that is like employee favor favorable, right? Um, like that's just not happening anymore, right? Um, and I'm seeing that in like the jobs that get posted and in the job descriptions and things like that, right? So I think that's also to blame right because some folks are like you know the world has done changed right like all of this has changed now um and this pullback I'm seeing from a lot of the employers back to no you need to be in the office some of them being reasonable like oh okay we have to do hybrid or whatever right or you have to go into one of the office locations somewhere um but still I think I think that's not helping

matters cuz some people are just like no and then also um like senior roles and lead roles because there's less games happening like those roles are just not coming right. Um I think I think if you're an engineer um there's a little bit more chance because you can like go work at some AI company or go work in Fang or something, right? But if you want to stay in games, it's still like, you know, less games are being made, so there's less roles. It's just that simple, right? And so it's it's it's it's hitting people really hard, right? All of these changes all mixed up are are contributing to like a really dire situation. Yeah.
Well, what what do you think the ending is? This is just like whoever makes it to the end are permanent.
Yeah. Yeah. Fighting.
Some people have argued, oh, the thing to do is to start your own company, right? Um but you still like you still need to eat, right? and and uh and I can

tell you start your own company is not a way to eat right away.
Wait, you eat less.
Uh right. So uh so yeah. So I would just I would say like you have to um Yeah, you have to just try to make it through. Right. Some people are lucky. You know, they have they have partners that are working and and they can live off of the other partners' paycheck or whatever, right? But but I'm sure some people are are in desperate situations, right? And I don't see a large enough correction happening in time for for a lot of people, right?
There's um there's a there's been a thread that's kind of been uh in discussion right now, right, with
Yeah.
Uh this idea where the they're throwing the baby out with the bath water with AAA gang. alla games the the the irresponsibility of managing have caused

this collapse that's happening right now right
uh where me and you obviously like it's part of the problem not the whole problem
but like also like this there's like this idea too this fantasy that there's refuge in in what you're saying like building your own company indie development that's where it's at because that's where the games are still passionate it's all about the love of it and not about the money. And like
you're probably reacting the same way is like the push back on that idea is that any indie games that are doing well right now, they don't scale, right? And if anything, you know, they're made in short spurts. It's it's to it's the idea of, you know, to encourage small teams to stay small and maximum profit, right? And and right now we're having 20,000 less people without a job with even if indie mark indie games have been do slightly better right 50% even

right there's no placement for any of these people to get
in the par that for for for even looking at stability right these games are not made to last two plus years or more after I mean it's it's more it it's it's an avenue for some people or small percent of people but the vast majority of people that are struggling with are permanently disciplined which is a very scary scenario that I've never been a part of that um I think and kind of speaking to how the games come and all these companies are flourishing we're so far from where they are right now. Starting with having a good amount of team that stick together and stay together for a development cycle.

Development cycle being now 3 to eight years. I mean talk about cloud chambers.
A Bioshock game, right? The fourth one having trouble.
Well, that team one, that team did not stay together, right? That is not a It is It is It is multiple new teams,
but it is a license that is by name alone can sell a million. I
easily. Yes.
Easily. I I don't even know. Don't even care what the game play is, how it looks.
So, like like it's going to come out and it's probably going to sell multiple millions of units and make a big splash and all that kind of stuff. whether it will have like the longevity and be as good as uh Bioshock or the best game in the series, Bioshock 2. Um I'm joking, but but some people have actually said that
it's their favorite game.
Yeah, some people have said that that Bioshock 2 is their favorite. But anyway, um they might have just been saying that, I don't know, but um like

it will come out and it will make a big splash, right? But um but yeah, that game has gone through a lot of lot of people, a lot of problems. Um team's growing, right? So so like yeah, I wish them well done though. You know, I would I wouldn't mind a good Bioshock game coming out, right? But I just think how long it's taken for sure is an example of mismanagement, like 100%. Right? Um mismanagement, lack of direction, right? And so now they have to call they have to parachute in the fixer, right? To fix it, right? Um that game should have came out two, three years ago, right?
Yeah, for sure.
Um
yeah,
that's why I'm kind of like hoping it feels like there's no new tech that's going to drive interests right now. Not yet.
Yeah. Um, I was kind of hoping BR AR would give it as soon as like it's kind

of taking the back burner to AI right now. And then
it's AI right now. But also, you know, that's a whole another thing, right? AI, right? And and how that's impacting people, too. Um, like
that's for sure. That's for sure. Eliminating.
Let's jump right into that, right? That's on my list right here. So, the AI surge, you know, we're seeing these development moves. We're seeing like I is it net ease and 10 cent. with kind of teeny things like little photos of 3D prop asset which freaking know one is something on 3D but like the thing that really made me I mean those type of AI tools those type of things that and contribute to you know uh game development uh me you any developer saw that getting past years I literally Oh yeah, naturally. The one thing that really caught me by surprise and I would love

to hear your graphics engineer is that Google that stuff that the that's doing at Google now the genie. Have you seen the genie stuff?
Uh which which which one you talking about? The the video the video stuff.
The genie stuff where it simulates the environment.
And then you're able to at least walk simulator. All right. Tell me, tell me what
I know it's marketing hype,
but I always look at all these tools as like, oh, is this the worst version? We'll see. All right.
And then this gets kind of
So, what do you think about all this? Describe describe describe it first and then let's get into it. Yeah.
Basically, yeah, basically what they're trying to say is that they've have a model that can basically simulate like a video game, right? And and they released a version of this like a few months ago. It was like six maybe last year sometime.
Yeah.
And it was like you know um temporarily unstable right which what does that mean? When I move the camera

and I move it back the object that was there is there generating new
Yeah. It's generating new frames as you as you move the camera around and things that it thinks should be there. Um but it had no sort of um temporal stability. Right. Which is right. And then it was like really blurry and they showed like a Doom guy
and and they were like a Doom simulator and it looked looked horrible, right? And so now fast forward to like recently um they have a new version of it and I yeah, somebody shared with me the the video. I haven't like dug too much into it, but I saw the some of their videos. It's way more temporally stable, right? So, like, you know, when you're looking around, you see buildings and they stay there and it kind of
they were painting a wall in one of the demos. They were painting a wall so you can leave a mark.
Yeah. A lot a lot sharper, right? It has memory, right? Like much longer context window so it can actually remember what's going on, right? Um, but yeah, is

it an open world like GTA 5, right? Context window cannot be that big, right? So, so, so it cannot remember everything. So, I'm sure it's in like like a small area. And then on top of it, like what I've seen, while Impressive looks soulless.
Oh, yeah.
You're like, "Oh, yeah, of course." And and so like people going down this this route of thinking like that this is somehow going to completely replace like I I can like I know somebody personally who's super excited of AI generating a whole entire game according to their whim, right? They're super excited about it. They're like, "Oh, I can't wait to tell it whatever I want and then I'll get the game." Right? um what they don't understand is that those games will suck because your ideas are probably terrible, right? And and then the AI on top of it will not will

not be able to even fulfill your idea fully, right? And um like I understand like how exciting it is because like I think all of us at least some people our age grew up um watching Star Trek and the holiday deck, right? and we want and that is the kind of tech that will that will enable a future holiday right um but but the way there's some technical limitations to LLM like I think going down that route is just a dead end right
you think it's a dead end
I think for this kind of stuff using the current LLM technology right is a dead end I don't think you could probably extend make the context window bigger you could probably, you know, make it more stable. That's how they're getting all this like make the context a little bit bigger so it's more stable, more has more memory, right? Um but it's but it it still cannot replace creativity and and all of that partated.

Yeah. And and that's why it was kind of misleading to say it's simulating, right? Um, it it's it's really guessing uh like based on your prompts like what you what this thing should look like, right? And how should I move the camera around this, right? Um, and that is not going to lead to a fun GTA type game, right? Um, you're not going to get fun interactivity. You're not going to get emergent gameplay, right? um you know so so I I think while it's cool and it's super impressive and the tech has improved a lot right it's it's it's like yeah I'm going to replace there'd be no games but these in the future yeah I know like I think you that's very wishful thinking yeah
yeah I mean I don't think um I'll be the other guy I don't think

I mean we all the game industry started with pop, right? We got to say, right?
And uh the rate of improvement with the Ji tools is a sound. I mean, you're talking about I think the version we're all impressed with right now is the G3, right? The third version. And you were talking about like when you first saw it, the G2, which was whatever, right? And that was a matter of probably a year or two of difference of the the rate of of change and improvement. And like like most AI tools in the last few years, the the potential is always like large and hopeful, but like the realization um has been steady, right? And and and and um predictable. And
Mhm.
I'm I'm seeing I'm seeing something that can change our to the experience person,

right? Uh how we want to create and like I I do believe anyone that's creative like I'm I'm seeing the same with these video mods, right? Where you prompt something and you can create with a little short film
to a beginner. You can you can see the the problems uh uh when they're using those tools. It's just like a fundamental of editing, fundamentals of storytelling is not there. It looks like a bad commercial, right? Or a bad music video. It's just badly put together.
There's no sense. There's no beginning. There's no middle and there's no storytelling on it. Um but over time if that person is dedicated like anything right they can get better at it and become something. So I think with these uh walking simulator right that um if they continue to uh polish uh that it could be a subg genre. I mean

it won't replace I think it can maybe simulate elements of and it will take a really dedicated first in the team with spoons but I I can it can definitely do some parts of it. I mean, I saw one where someone was trying to do Red Dead Redemption. It's all blockchain, right? Because that is the if there was ever question about what is the Mount Rushmore game. It's all GTA games, all all like Rockstar games. Like this is the this the epic peak of game design defined, right? Like you know, ultimate game. You look at Rockstar. I mean, um
not enough credit. Let's give it for them. But like uh yeah, someone was trying to do Red Dead and it was just the non game part where you're just walking around getting on a floor, right?
I was like, well, yeah, they're trying to recreate it, but at the same time,

it's jittering, right? It's it's kind of lagging a bit. Well, like I person development able to kind of make something that even if the team of game developers, it would have taken about a month or two to make recreate this stupid thing that he's doing one to one, right? So like when I compare to things like that, like it'd be interesting to see what the team at Google is capable of, right? because yeah, it's going to be up to them. If they understand game design, create something for game development that would work.
Wait, hold on. Hold on. Stop.
Did you just say Google understanding game design? Do you just
I know this thing is going to go out of fashion.
The two It's already The team's already been played off, renamed. Yeah, I mean like Yeah, I actually I had

to pull up pull up the website again to refresh my memory of what like I of what I saw and it's like yeah I mean it's come such a long way like you have to give them props for that you know and like and they talk about the interaction horizon and that's and this is why you know people getting super excited you could get super excited about tech advancements. I think tech advancing is always cool and there's always like oh some some new cool thing
you know like it's it has advanced from basically 10 to 20 seconds of interaction to multiple minutes of interaction right and so if you have multiple minutes let's call it four right because it's probably something like that um now you want to make a video game that gives people unlimited you know not unlimited but like gives people like you know 40 hours of gameplay maybe maybe 30 hours of gameplay way, right? Um, from 5 minutes to 30. I'll let you do the math on that. That's a lot of of multiples, right? That's that's many many multiples that

you have to you have to improve the tech in order to even begin to think about providing um gain, right? Um, and and that's and that's where I'm just like, yeah, I don't know. like I I just don't see it getting there
knowing what I knowing what we know about the technology right in general right
I think the people we're going to see it in um bite-size uh development I there'll be elements of a game that will use some of this
maybe
it won't simulate the whole game but there'll be a part of the game where a developer
utilizes right Um yeah, so right now like so I actually I went to an event recently and I'll just leave it at that. I went to like an AI event
um where people were talking about AI in games. I I don't want cuz I you know I
did Zuckerberg offer you a big pay package.

No,
dude. Dude, if that was true, you would not be here. I'm Ray Graham. I'm a I'm an engineer at Meta. That's what you'd be hearing, right? Like Yeah. No, but no, that's not happening. Um but um no but uh I so I went to this event and you know it was like people making games that like are fully integrating AI and LLMs into the game into the game and into the game play right so like
making objects complex object interactions um NPC uh there's guy doing like um D&D dungeons things like that right so they take over the role of the dungeon master right
um so like a lot a lot of cool things Right. And and even these guys who are like at the forefront, right, are saying how like, you know, it's still not perfect. They still got a long way to go, right? And
what what is that time frame in terms of long
that's the thing I that's that's the

thing. I don't I don't know if any of their stuff ever gets to the holy grail of what they want, right? um like it does things that's kind of cool now, right? But will it get to the perfect utopia that everybody envisions?
Right now it's very markety.
It's still unknown. It's still unknown. The other thing that though was interesting is what they mentioned is that what they're doing now, they have to be very very careful with cost because a lot of because a lot of them are not they're not running their own models. They're they're going through services like like OpenAI and Anthropic and Google and all of those, right? Using their API to get data back and you get you get charged per per interaction, right? Uh token token length and and the number of messages you're sending. And so these games are getting popular and they're like, "Oh, we have to start we have to start charging more because we're getting charged a ton of money by by OpenAI and

these guys, right?" And and and they and they're assuming that the cost will come down as the technology continues to improve. Um and I think that is like not necessarily true, right? um like it'll come down a little bit but will it come down enough where you are now running a profitable business? Not sure. Right. And it shocks me that not more people are just like hey some of the stuff we're doing like you don't need an open AI server rack and you don't need AMD like Nvidia graphics cards and a rack of graphics cards to do this stuff. Um, I'm surprised not enough people are thinking about how can we do this with a local model which will reduce the cost drastically, right? There's examples of people doing this already, right? Using an open open um open source model,

fine-tune it with whatever data you need, and then you can run that locally on on a lot of different hardware, right? And so now you don't have to do these expensive calls, right? And it's shocking to me that at a g AI and games talk and cost gets brought up, no one is like, yeah, like we need to talk about running local models, right? Um
it's like what what we what are we doing? But but what's holding people back from that is like they're just like I don't want to have to like you have to hire people that know what they're doing, right? maybe one or two because if especially if your use case is not that crazy, a couple people probably can can make it happen. Couple couple experienced people, but now you're you're you're competing with your boy with your boy Zuck and his pay packages, right? And Open AI and their pay packages and and Google and their pay packages. And they're like, "Ah, the let me just call the API and then worry about my product." But the the cost is

not going to come down. We're very much in a bubble right now and a lot of
100% 100%. Yeah.
A lot of people are more focused on creating a product who sell off not not a not a finished product but like they the the idea a potential product. There's so many ideas out there, right?
And uh and so there really uh isn't a need to um realize anything right now. man.
Uh, and like you said, like all the guys who are at forefront of this either doing their own thing or working with Zuck and how much innovation can there be, you know, if you're not part of the system already uh and ifever you're just on the fringe, which you're kind of saying that, you know, you're not doing this in your own local

uh ways, then you're not really
pushing the envelope. Right.
Well, you're you're also at the mercy you're at the mercy of
of the the services that you're using. Right. Like
their their their UL list will change overnight, you know, and then you end up with like a a Unity runtime fee situation kind of thing, right?
Um where it's like what you now you're charging me this ridiculous, right? So um
so it's it's just kind of crazy. I don't want to come across like sounding like a AI hater, you know? Um
no, I don't think so. Uh but but I but I would I would say like I think that there's no there's things that I actually am I'm excited about ways of where it could actually help accelerate game development in ways that you retain create creative control where you can actually be get your workflows accelerated, right? There's a lot of tedious and mundane things that we do, right, that should just be automated

away. Um and then AI can help in those things, right? Help solve some of those those actually really hard problems, right? That that um that help make your your flow better, right? I've used AI to generate code, right? Um
which is the best right now.
What? Oh, for for code, I think Claude has been has been amazing.
Yeah, especially like Unreal Code. Um, and when I say cloud has been amazing, it still generates code that does not compile very regularly. Right. So like, so if you understand where the techn is at, right? Like it still generates code that doesn't compile. Right. Right. So um, and so that is that's um, something that when you hear people talk about vibe coding and all this kind of stuff, right? And really the big proponents of it, right? it still generates code that does not compile, let alone code that does the right thing, right? Um, and

does it have to do with um because I've been reading this a lot
with pro like Unreal coding especially like right now because it's it's kind of like what you're saying when it's not localized
like there's no connection to the project. It's not referencing the correct stuff.
Is that part of it or
so? So, um, so I'm going to give a shout out to, uh, to to my boy, um, Andy over at Ramen VR, right? Because they're actually working on something to, um, to solve that problem
so that the AI can actually learn or know about the context of your project, right? Um, but that's still that's still still susceptible to the the basic technology of the Labs, right? where you have to have a large context window so it could retain that information so that when it's guessing it can make the right guesses, right? Um but when you're telling it, hey, call this and hook up to this and do this, right? A lot of times it it's like what are you talking

about? Right? Like I'm just going to do this other thing.
And then you know there's situations where you're like hey I made a mistake. I was like, "Hey, you know, you should derive it from this class." Um, and that class I made a mistake. That class didn't exist.
But then the AI took me at my word and just just generated that code. No, no problem, right? You know what I mean, right? So, um,
and it does stupid things like take something that could just be a variable and a function call and change it into a switch statement, right? For no reason, right? So like you have everything that it generates you have to you have to vet and make sure it's doing the right thing.
It very much still needs a lead. So you it's like
Yeah.
a very smart inter.
Yeah. But but sometimes Yeah. But sometimes if you're going crazy with that and and you have to like vet everything, sometimes it might just be faster for you to bang out the code. You know what I mean? Um because the number one and that's the that's another thing I've been thinking about recently is

like the number one thing that is the bottleneck to a feature getting landed or or something getting done is not the code typing the code typing is actually a very small part of the problem it's more like the thinking and like how am I going to you know and if you're doing in the context of a big company that it's also like getting by and and convincing people and like and all of that stuff, all of the political stuff, all of the talking parts are way more timeconuming than actually writing the code, right? Um and and we doing a lot of stuff to try to optimize the codew writing part, but like that's not
the bottleneck, right? Yeah.
It's just like in terms of um right now there's just so much coming out with stuff.
Yeah. Um, there's a lot of gimmicking stuff, right?
Yeah.

And I'm sure there's this I'm sure they're good people that we met at the convention. There's people just like on the fringe of AI game development, right?
People people are passionate about it, you know?
Well, they're figing things out and we need that group, right? But what have you seen? Not just, you know, you spoke a little bit to the practical side of things, just helping you with like an assistant, right? But what have you seen that have been
completely flipped your idea of game development potentially? Right. For me, when I saw the G3 stuff, I was like, whoa. So, I I just to be clear, right, I don't think it's a replacement for art, right? I do see it as like this is a tool where
potentially if it is fully realized like the Matrix,
you know, I'm just like fantasizing about that, right? like the the potential like this really does change you how you throw the internet, right?
Have you seen anything like that from your side?
Just

you you had your hands in these cookie jars, more cookie jars than I have with the AS stuff. Like,
have you seen anything that you're like this will change
something the next year or two?
I I just think
Yeah, I think the the commoditization of the technology, right? like the fact that it's like in everything now um is going to change how people do things in general, right? Um but then also there's a lot of snake oil and there's a lot of hype, right?
And and so like I'm always trying to be the the more sensible person, right? like somebody's like this this I you know my son wants to be a software engineer and now I'm like I'm telling them that maybe they shouldn't because AI might just take their job you know
and I'm like I'm like
AI might might take the job of like a junior engineer maybe

right I'm I'm still I'm still not sold right uh because it might be faster to just have a junior engineer do the thing right you know what I mean rather than you tell an AI And the AI is kind of like a bad junior programmer that doesn't learn that doesn't actually learn.
Doesn't learn.
Yeah. Right. So, um, and so like maybe like
starts lying to you.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
And so, like, so that's that's where I'm just like I I think you're crazy, right? So, um, and I think you might be a little bit too too hyped on it if you're saying stuff like that. Um but like seeing how it can actually accelerate people's ref I see how you know Google workspace a lot of the AI features in there are super helpful right and I've seen like um AI agents do code reviews and and fix their this crazy thing you're in a matrix where like code uh AI will generate code and then another AI agent will read the code and be like this don't work and then fix it.

Why didn't you buddy up with this guy? I know something,
right?
You guys work together, figure this stuff if we do badly.
Just AI eating itself, right? Um, but so like, you know, all of those things are kind of cool, right? But at the same time, we have to like tamper that with the right amount of enthusiasm, you know, and right now it's it's definitely a bubble. Like if if you are making a video game, you want money, just say you're doing some AI stuff in it
and and you're off you're off to the races, right? So you know um that's that's you know it's it's it's I'm also seeing with the kids right like so you know I also teach kids um how to make video games and I you know I got asked the question we were because we were talking about AI policy at this program and you know somebody asked is like oh well can I use it like as Google and I'm like okay you're not hearing me

it is not Google.
Mhm.
It will although Google has this AI summary thing which is often very wrong.
Yeah.
Right. Like a lot of times the AI summary that Google spits out today right now as a as a product
is is wrong a lot of times. Right.
Um so is like chatbt returning you your search results. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so then you actually have to vet and verify that that information is actually correct,
right? Um, and so like just the fact that kids are using it as a Google replacement because it gives you an answer faster because you don't have to search, you don't have to sort through all the the wrong links, the wrong links that Google's returning and the ads and all the all the spam and all that stuff, right? Um, it's returning you a very a result very fast, but the the quality of that result is probably not very good or has a high chance not being good, right? And if the kids

And if the kids just take Exactly. And if the kids just take it at face value and put it in a paper or something like that, which has happened numerous times, right? This is this is already happening, right? Um with with infactual information in it, like,
oh no, like we're going to be talking to people with bad information all the time. You're describing everyday life here.
Well, you're la you're laughing. You're saying it's everyday life, right? But imagine like AI can make it much much worse if we don't use our critical thinking skills, right? Like it could be much worse, right?
I I definitely see critical thinking skills being
gone, disappearing even younger generation.
Very fast. Yeah,
very fast. It's vastly
Yeah.
I mean you you're bringing up the interesting point. I mean that's the full ethics of that.
Yeah.
And lasting the impact of AI like if AI is kind of held on to as such absolute truth then there's no reason to question

it when it fits an answer so quickly and conveniently. And then with people's confidence uh in their own opinion being self high that there's going to be like
this strongly opinionated groups of people that gets their opinions from uh Mega Corp and Zuckerberg and it's not even their own is bad to them.
Yeah. That's theory.
Really really the only thing that has to happen is folks need to be more vigilant and just more more on it when it
more common sense.
Yeah. Yeah. And just be and just be mindful that the current technology is not infallible. Like it sometimes it's like magic, you know.
It's Yeah. Sometimes it does stuff and it's like magic, right? And at the same time, it's, you know, people are in in real danger of losing jobs over it and

all this kind of stuff, right? And and it really does some amazing things. At the same time, you know, it's it's
a multiplier of truth.
Yeah. It can also be like very very wrong and then and then you're in a spiral, right? I I cannot tell you how many students code I have fixed or I've I have had to look at
because it was AI generated
because they they vibe coded it and then it was not working and they did not know what to do right
what's is what's vi coding for the non-th is that just like feeling it or just program
it's no it's basically just like you go to like chat or whatever or Google copilot you're like hey give me this
right and you just let it do its thing and generate your project for you and generate your thing for you, right? Um, and you're just like, "Yeah, you know, it was started as a joke." Yeah.
It was started as a joke, right? Because people were like, "I'm vibe coding. This is like this is so ridiculous, right?" And it somehow caught on. And then people then all the LinkedIn influencers

are
uh are using it and talking about how it's helping them make their product from zero to 60. I I could there's no longer an excuse for you to not build something, right? Like all that kind of nonsense, right? Um, but yeah, like so vibe, like I've had students vibe code and then still need me to help them fix it because it doesn't work right. And and I'm like,
well, what happens when you're not around to fix it?
Exactly.
With these young group of programmers,
you could use AI as long as you know what you're doing.
So, check it. Do not do not allow AI to replace your fundamentals, right? Um fundamental programming skills, fundamental architecture, like all these things you still need, right? Obviously, because here's a whole project that is like a mess, right? And doesn't work, right? And it's happened so many times. Like I can't even tell you how many times it happened, right? Um

well, let me uh check you real quick. Um, so I mean we talked about the long time. I mean the remote thing overall I'm going to say the remote thing have destroyed our industry.
No
no I'm let me tell you let me break it down to you. Right.
I don't believe it.
The old guards such as yourself and others are fine. All right. We benefit greatly from most stuff. the youngster are disappearing very fast, right? Because now what what's going on with the AI stuff is that I'm seeing this too.
Even on the art side, it's like, do I really need
to hire a guy to make 3D stuff anymore, right? Or can I just use this AI tool to make it so much faster? It's the way I like it without the
You can't make You can't use AI to make 3D.
It's getting It's getting It's all ass.

It is getting there, dude. It is getting scarily close. It's a good enough. You barting, dude. I'm barting stuff now. It's fine.
You as a 3D modeler yourself, I know you make 3D models yourself.
Yeah, but this is where I'm seeing
telling me the bottles that come out of this stuff looks good. Is that what you're telling me?
What I'm saying is we're seeing the infacy of all these, right? Especially art tools. There is a there is a there's no dead end to the art tools. I can see it just progressing to a point where it's fine. All right. Uh and so like
put it in the back. Put it in
put in the back. It's fine. But like what I'm saying is that there's this disappearing class of young develop like you said yourself like junior developers for coding and art are having a toughest time
Yeah.
getting jobs especially if the studio is all remote. All right. And if they do happen to get into remote, right, even if you're a junior, even if you're like

a 15-year vet, they are the first one on the block to get cut. It's so much easier to lay off someone you never met, right? So like the structure right now of
Well, well, that's where I call into question the whole setup, right? Because you said you said it's easier to cut somebody you you never met, right?
Yeah. And I think like there are people that just say, "Hey, remote,
I could just never meet you." Yeah.
And we don't never ever need to work together and we could just work remotely.
Meet in person.
Those people are idiots, right? Every last one of them. I also say that out loud, right? Um anybody that does it for real and does remote for real talks about, okay, how do we get together at certain at certain intervals,
right? To grow those bonds and create those connections and all that kind of stuff, right? Um it just turns out that that's expensive, right? To do that, right? Um
I don't know if you heard, but the industry is kind of going through something right now.
There's no money.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. No, but people do this, right? And and the people that that

really believe in remote make it work for them, you know. But then there's but like I said, I think there is just like a backlash in general happening with a lot of the executive level folks that are like, "Nah, you need to bring your tail in here. I need to make good games and I need you to be here and that's how we make good games where we're all here together all the time." And and and that's just I think it's outdated thinking. Um I think there's some truth
for the older folks such as yourself. I will say this truth to being together when you need to be together. And there's also and I'm also like a programmer, right? And so there's definitely times where I'm like, "Leave me the hell alone."
Yeah. Or leave time alone.
Um and so like, you know, like I I think you have to know how to measure that and when you need to come together to do that.
I think right
with an experienced team,
right, that are able to self-manage.

I'm not even I'm not even Okay, I'm not even buying that. Right. I'm not even buying it. Right? Because for youth youth that are hard to self No, listen to me. Right. Youth that are hard to self-manage, you just fire them. You just get them out if they're not doing
goodbye. Young generation of developers.
You do, right? But there's if you're serious, I know a lot of young people that are serious about working, right? They have more I actually I'm more concerned about older people. Oh, yeah. Right. Because when you're at home, you have a lot of you have a lot of distractions, right? If you have a family and you have kids and you have all these things, you have to go pick up the kid, you got to go to the grocery store, right? There's things that pull you away from work. If you're like there's a lot of young young dudes out here, a lot of young not I shouldn't just say dudes, but like there's a lot of young kids out here that are about that grind, right? Um and the ones that are not are the ones that are just going to get like just chopped. You know what I mean?
Yeah. I

still feel that a lot of these studios that I feel like the youngsters have to be in the office. They have and they have to have that mentor right alongside them in the first year or two.
Yes. That that's far more valuable.
They need to foster. But like people like us
say, "Hey, I burned my stripes. I'm going to work on all of it." like no one wants to come in and mentor these kids. That's the thing. The the mentorship, the hovering art director was was a joke before, but now it's like absolutely necessary for the younger generation,
but nobody wants to show up at the office and they just want to clock and do our work, clock out, which I I get if it's about the work. once every three months getting is not enough for these young kids to develop and I'm seeing this whole group being skipped over or mid level or higher to get a game done right

and I've been saying this for few years now that it's a discipline uh group and if you do that you cannibalize your own it's like this long argument about living forever right like you know it's a real thing. You're talking about like these like Zucks and billionaires that all they're about uh main focus besides like running the company is like fighting the wonder drugs so they can live, right? And like there's so many sci-fi ethical arguments against that because the people who live forever are most likely there's rich people and they will always be in power, right? That's the problem. It's like they'll never give that up because I'm more wise. I'm richer than you. I had more years. Why would I step aside and take over? Which is very it cannibalizes the whole. So in the game history, same thing. If you if this young group, this guy
just just to interrupt you. Um in time,

the movie in time, I highly recommend. But anyway, continue.
Is that the Justin Timberlake movie? Which one?
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
It's exactly about what you're talking about.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's a real thing. But like like I'm seeing like this dunk group who's going to take over the history when me and you are done with.
I don't see that class. Who is that group?
I mean
I don't see it.
I mean I mean I see like I said
we're like uh we're we're we're phasing the like you said it's both it's both sides, right? It's a super veterans and the younger like you know we're we're the middle class right now in terms of
I'll say this. I'll just say this. I I do Game Heads Oakland every summer, every year. Most of my Saturdays, I'm dealing with kids.
Yeah.
In the video game industry. Um we have been going on a run of posting how many students from Game Heads have gotten jobs in the industry.
Yeah.
Um so this is where I'll toot the horn, my own horn,

but also the horn of of Games Oakland, right? because we are feeding youth into this industry even during this time where it is it is like hard out there. Um we have students that are getting jobs at at at video game companies Sledgehammer, PlayStation, Microsoft, right? They're all they're all landing in places and getting jobs in industry. Juniors like fresh out of school. Some of them are getting internships because they still need to get like some reps under their belt. Some of them have full-time jobs, right? And and that's why we do it, right? is so that we can build that base of of young talent coming into the industry because it is it is like when I came in, you know, the old heads.
Yeah.
I had I had some help. There's some there's some people that stand out, but there's a lot of people that do not stand out, right? And and um and and did not at all want to help. You know what I mean? And so that and that's why I do what I do, right? Is so that we could keep that keep that um pipeline going.

Um, so like and I see that and I also see that like you know when I go to GDC I see a lot of youth you know looking for jobs sure but also like super interested in making games some of them making indie games a lot of them just like say hey screw it I'm just going to I'm just going to do it you know what I mean? I see a lot of that right? Um but yeah, like I think the real issue is like is um Triple A really not really embracing
that
that that so much anymore, right? And I think that is that is actually to the detriment of the industry because that's you could get a lot of experience as a young person working on a AAA team, you know.
I think it um it's not just the experience. just the um the energy.
Yeah.
Like Yeah. I I uh
they have way more they have way more energy than me. I tell you that right now.
Well, I mean that's what I've been what I've noticed is like the the jaded like

developers, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Kind of clocking clocking out getting a paycheck and me when they're around younger people like that, they get reminded of the young stuff I do. I was Oh, yeah, man. when I was 20.
Mhm.
You know, crunching wasn't so bad. Like I loved it. That's all I wanted to do. And um we are left empathy in this industry and doing the things that we do. Uh it I think it's true for every job or industry that that balance
kind of helps move things forward. And I think right now a lot of the problems that we're having is just like bearing corporate heads, older guys kind of run through uh still kind of keeping the the the shelter up and we're kind of like collapsing under our own weight of negativity and uh and and all that crap that's

happened, right? And uh we're cannibalizing ourselves by doing that, by not introducing new blood into the environment, right? And
that's why I I kind of feel I know there's some companies that you've been a part of, right? And there are companies out there that are doing remote correctly, but most aren't is what I'm saying. Like I feel like most aren't. and uh they're doing a terrible job and uh I think overall I prefer how it was and this guy who is working remotely all the time before it was cool and I definitely see the beneficial part of it but like I think that it's so much easier for people the the the the convenience of working remote is also an inconvenience of working remote like I can turn off my

computer and I'm done with work. Like I don't have to think about work. I don't think about the the collapse of the studio. I don't have to think about, you know, that guy in the corner crying about do I have a job next week because I'm like I'm done with it.
Yeah.
No, I would I would say one that um you are one of those you are also probably a slacker if that's true, right? Because people people that are like dialed in when they turn that computer off even if they're at home or not.
Make it magic.
Yeah.
The brain the brain's going the brain's going, right? Or you don't even turn off you don't even want to turn off the computer.
What's the 8020 rule? That's 20%. You think 80% of the industry think that 20%.
I'm just I'm just saying right that's that that is not necessarily the thing. And I I think I think you're also discounting the main what you're what you're say what you're talking like is a boss.
Yeah.
Right. You you want you want to retain control, right? Get it. I get it. I understand. However, right, the real main benefit is is those bonds that form, bro. People being close.

Oh, yeah.
And people understanding, knowing how people because when you don't meet somebody, you're just talking to them over the the thing. It's like, oh man, that person's an idiot, right? And then then you hang out with them and you're like, "Oh, well, they're not so
Yeah, we we had the benefit of hanging out with each other way before this." But I can tell through your eyes that you're thinking of me more of an idiot every time we meet online.
No, but like just you know what I'm saying? That's that's that's the huge benefits, right? And it's also sometimes like you you're able to accelerate things when you're close together, right? And if you already if you already know what you're doing, you're
Yeah. Hey, if you already know what you're doing, you're executing, you don't need to be together. Yeah.
Yeah. The game jaming elements, I think it's super important to the younger generation than the older ones, but like uh
Yeah.
Uh I mean, it' be interesting to see these studios that are trying to get people back. I don't think there's a major studio right now that that um

obsessed, right? I think it's still very push that. Mhm. Yeah. Like the big studios are still very much hybrid right now. And there's some that are like, "Yeah, now you got to bring your tail in here every day." You know,
there are some, but not not not I I don't know a studio that's doing it 100%. Be interested to see if one studio does do that and and seeing what kind of success it would be.
Yeah.
Um but yeah, I mean I mean that's pretty much it. Uh you know, it's about an hour. I want to wrap things up. There's a lot to go over, you know. Um, but uh I think we can kind of pay the the major issues in the last couple months. Uh, it it's good to kind of hear your news. Yeah. Stuff.
A lot of um speculation.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could be speculating too, but um
Well, I mean, at least you're a

programmer. I mean, the main thing that everyone's talking about like, can I make make game button right now? It's like you're saying no. basically the system.
Um,
yeah, but honest like and here's the thing. I was like working on tech to try to make make game button, right? And I and I think there's parts of it that are possible. Um, but it's also like extremely extremely extremely difficult, especially once you get into complex make game things or if you want to get into like um you know things that can be composable and modified and like code that is structured in a very particular way, right? Um that's when it starts getting really really hard. Um because you can yeah you could tell LLM, hey, give me a Unity player controller that I can jump and I can run. Oh my god, this is like magic. You know what I mean? Um but that is
that is that's kindergarten level, right? Um that's not real. was it seems like the main thing you're saying is

like the current pay model of p of using these big AI platform is not uh uh cannot result into a full fuzzed game because we're relying on networking to talk
and and it's not retaining because of that
it's not retaining information
context window yeah and it's and it's like these LLMs are a big probability machine, right? And so they're doing like here's the most plausible next thing that should be right. And that's where the hallucinations come in,
right?
And we we call them hallucinations because it's like it's cool thing to think that it's actually thinking and it's just like kind of like off.
But those are just errors like straight up bullshitting.
Is this wrong? It's just wrong. It sounds like me and you need to make a AI that is like a buddy system that just lags it as it compiles.

Yeah,
they save some time. It's like, oh, need.
Oh, someone's got to steal it. You laugh about it, but that's a billion dollar idea right there. Yeah,
ship it, man. Ship it.
Sign up. Sign up for A16Z, man. You got it. All right. Done. Well, uh, I want to thank everybody. Welcome back, Gray. Uh, welcome back, everybody. Hopefully you guys enjoyed. And, uh, hit us up, you know, on, uh, it's X now. I It's long enough.
I know it's Twitter, bro. Twitter still,
uh, Ray at myself. Uh, share your opinions and everywhere else. Jump on our Discord. I'll see you guys later. Bye. All right. Yeah. Dude, are you are you on some medication? Is your is your tongue swollen or something? Or is you like