Is AI Going To Destroy The Indie Game Industry?

Is AI going to destroy the indie game industry? I mean, imagine this for a second. Spending 10 years on a game only to discover that Grock or some other AI can spit the same game out in a split second. It's kind of a nightmare scenario for all of us. So, I really needed to talk to someone who might know about this topic. I can't think of a better person to talk to than Adam Ununas. His game, Insignia, looks like the exact opposite of an AI game, and he spent 10 years nurturing and crafting this game. I felt incredibly encouraged at the end of the conversation. So, let's go ahead and jump in and see what Adam has to say about AI. And by the way, if you're interested in upgrading as a full-time gamedev, this video is sponsored by my own program, Full-Time GameDev. It's 40% off for the spring sale. If you enroll during the next 5 days, you'll get the massive discount, but also my 2D and 3D art programs. Learn to make games from an actual indie gamedev, but also learn to get funding

and go full-time indie before you even finish the game. There's only 100 seats available and 5 days left. Join 400 students worldwide by clicking the link below. Thanks. I I look at your art style and then I look at AI art and I'm like, there's no way. There's no I just think I just think there's no way the AI art or AI can replicate what Adam has created here because there's just something really really special about Insignia. I was watching your live stream a couple days ago and there's my heart immediately was like back when I was 10 back when I was like 10 years old. Thank you. Um and Jason I do you feel that way about Insignia? It's like this classic Zelda vibe. I mean, not to fan girl too much, but the devs for that are kind of what got me into gamede dev, like to actually try it. So, wow. Yeah. Thank you. It's a very nostalgic feeling. And And my point is is that I'm just sitting here going it I I'm thinking about AI a lot. I

mean, I talk about it with every guest. I'm I'm trying to get every guest predict to make predictions so that they can all fall flat. I'm kidding. But like even even like Ken Lavine was like, "I'll tell you what I think about AI, but just know that I'm probably wrong." So my question to you is, can do you think AI will be able to create something like Insignia? All right. I've had this is like a topic that I've put a lot of thought into so we could be spending the next half an hour talking about this but um I think that can I lay out like a bit of a I'll lay out a thing. So I think like we talk about this idea that like nothing is truly original and I think that there is such a I think there is originality. I think that exists and it usually requires like people to go outside the bounds of like creatively what's being explored to make something original and new. And I think

AI doesn't it because of the way it's generated. It's not really good at that like making stuff that's like completely offthe-wall. You've never seen it before because it's trained right on stuff that exists. That said, I think most of what creativity is in like our industry or in most industries is actually finding valuable stuff between the points of what exists right now. So like you take this genre and this genre and you find the midpoint that's valuable or somewhere in the middle. And I think AI is really good for that. I think it's really really good for taking, you know, the peanut butter and the chocolate and finding the Reese's peanut butter cup or whatever. Yeah, that's good metaphor. And it probably will always be an intelligent person guiding the AI to find that mix or that thing. Like I see on Tik Tok, I'm kind of like obsessed

with these um galleries that people put together of like screenshots they've cured of like they're just images that kind of feel like an like an um impressionist painting, kind of like a Studio Ghibli film fantasy thing. And it's like, man, I would love to play a game that looked like this. Now, the question of like whether AI is going to like you push a button and you get the game, I mean maybe in the far future, but um to speak to like what it is that is hard for AI to do and that I think when we say like AI could never do this, I think it's like there are so many different things that have to come together for a game to be that are happening on so many different levels that it's not it's kind of naive to think that just the visual style or a

soundtrack or something is what makes it feel that way. Yeah. Um like we agon I in the last week I've spent maybe 12 hours on like one cutscene in the game. Um it's the most important one. It's like when the player character kind of like discovers the mechanic in the game basically like the the powers. So it's is at the start of the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like within the first 45 minutes. um that cut scene it's like figuring out, okay, do we linger the camera on the player character at this zoom level here and then pull out to show the big central mechanism or do we show the mechanism and then wait while it powers up and then we see the you know and it's like and what do the V effects look like? Is it a beam of light coming up and we put a noise filter on that and we like you there are so many creative decisions that go into that that if you don't have like a continuity of like

direction like it needs to be this way because we've got to do this or that or that then it just becomes aimless it just becomes like kind of mushy and I think that's what AI tends to be bad at like just falling into these pit holes uh like pitfalls of like yeah the vibe is right but it's not specific. enough to mean something. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's uh I think that's why when you look at AI art, subconsciously, you know, like I don't even know if there's a a technical reason why I can point out AI art. I just feel it. It's a smell. It's like a That's the best way I could describe it. It just smells rotten. Now, I'm not opposed to AI. Um, I think AI is great in a lot of ways. Uh, I use I use it to code all day. I mean, I'm using uh Claude Grock Chat GPT. There's also this cool thing.

I think it's called I can't mention it actually. It's a sponsor for another video, but um, sure. It's like integrated into Unity and Okay, I'm all about it. I think it's great. But I I am struggling. I'm struggling emotionally, I guess. In my heart, I'm struggling with the idea that that the the more front-facing artistic things about games could potentially be replicated. Um, like it would pain me to see an AI make something like Insignia. Like, let's pretend AI made something just like Insignia and it has all of the delicious. Like the game, by the way, the game feel in your game is so punchy and crunchy and good, and the sounds are just perfect, and there's so much nostalgia baked into it. And it would it would make me feel so sad if Grock spit out a game like Insignia, even if it was just as good and it was just as fun and

it was awesome and players loved it, I would be sad. I would be sad about it. Why? Why do you think you would be sad? I don't know. I just feel like I don't know. I That's what I It's kind of a question, you know? Would you be sad? Obviously, you'd be sad cuz like it's just it just made your 10-year project in in a second, but like do you know what I mean? It's sad. I think there's like three three ways to think about it. The first is like me me economically, like financially, like it would be sad for me because I wouldn't be able to like profit or whatever off of the work that I've done. So, that would be sad because it would be Yeah. devalued. The second concern which you know maybe I would be sad maybe I wouldn't would be whether it would take away my opportunity to express myself like if there's like a hundred insignas out there but this one is mine and there is an audience who's playing it that might be enough for me I think um just to be able to express myself creatively and have people respond to it

and see you know feel something and then the third would be the market and what it's like to have 100 signas 100 insignia is just like out there. And that I think I would feel sad because I I think mass- prodduced uh entertainment media, it does this thing where it takes away our ability to have like collective conversations about things. Like if if we're all playing our own personalized insignia, then none of us are playing the one that was made by that one guy. And like it's like watching a TV show. Like we're watching Severance at the moment and the the way that everyone's talking about Yeah. The way that everyone's talking about it, it's like special. It's like the thing that Game of Thrones was or you know whenever you know whatever indie game Celeste and Hollow Knight Celeste and Hollow Knight and and Dead Cells when the Switch was coming out. Having that like this is the game we're playing and

let's all talk about it. That to me is really special as like a consumer. though, like as a player, that would be sad if we were all just playing our own personalized games. And by the way, if you're interested in upgrading as a full-time game dev, this video is sponsored by my own program, Full-Time GameDev. It's 40% off for the spring sale. If you enroll during the next 5 days, you'll get the massive discount, but also my 2D and 3D art programs. Learn to make games from an actual indie game dev, but also learn to get funding and go full-time indie before you even finish the game. There's only 100 seats available and 5 days left. Join 4,500 students worldwide by clicking the link below. Thanks.