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- Hacker News
- AI lets people cosplay as whatever field they are interested in. You can feel like a game developer, or doctor, or writer, or artist, and it's fun!by gilbetron
- I say this with all possible respect, reverence even, for what Tarn Adams has accomplished and what continues to work on, but there may be no worse messenger for the problem of disintermediating game designers and creators from actual code authorship than the author of Dwarf Fortress. It's an amazing game that succeeds in spite of and not because of its code. Had Adams been able to use Opus or Sol when he started with DF, that game would be a broad cultural milestone today, and not just a nerd affectation.by tptacek
- This seems to be miss the topic. Isn't the topic about AI and how damaging it can be? I am not sure why you want to discredit the messenger; the message appears to be correct. That should be a better focus.
> Had Adams been able to use Opus or Sol when he started with DF, that game would be a broad cultural milestone today, and not just a nerd affectation.
Well, that is an assumption. You have to demonstrate this claim. Right now I do not believe that claim.
by shevy-java - There is no universe in which Dwarf Fortress becomes a "cultural milestone." It's core concept and gameplay would never appeal to the mainstream.
The premise that the only thing holding it back is not using an AI seems far fetched. How much game code have you looked at? If it shipped, chances are it's a goddamn mess. People made memes about Undertale's thousand-line switch statement. But it isn't the code quality that makes a game (unless it breaks, if it works literally no one cares) but the design and intent behind it. Using an AI wouldn't result in anything as unique or as innovative as Dwarf Fortress. It would just get something forgettable and mediocre to market faster.
by krapp - I don't think there's a way to really say a comment like this "with all possible respect" given the (albeit meager) content of the article.
Either way, I'd be much more willing to bet that if Toady had Opus/Sol/whatever we wouldn't have Dwarf Fortress, we'd just have Rimworld: perhaps a technically better game, but not !FUN! in the same way Dwarf Fortress is fun.
by stryan - I’m in the front of the line for the Tarn Adams fan club, but I don’t think he’d be my first pick for advice on the state of software engineering. DF is exceptional in many ways, not all of them uniformly positive.by Ancapistani
- Game dev is the last thing I think will be genuinely disrupted by AI. It can do everything at the edges with superhuman ability, but the core magic happens in the scene where all the disparate systems come together to provide the final experience. Working in arbitrary world space is pretty much the hardest thing I can imagine asking an LLM to do. I also think things like animation, sfx and mastering will never be disrupted meaningfully at the AAA level.by bob1029
- there already tons of interesting games generated over at www.reddit.com/r/aigamedev
I think it is over
by vuurmot - We need Dwarf Fortress creator to lead Butlerian Jihadby profstasiak
- Instead, we got Universal Paperclips ¯\_(ツ)_/¯by tedd4u
- The number of dickovers[1] this website pops up while you're trying to read the article is truly astounding. I gave it my best shot, but after the third one i figured I'd probably gotten enough of the gist of it and gave up.by chias
- The one that sticks out to me is the last quote lamenting the fact that you can't talk about AI in games any more since the term AI has been hijacked to mean LLM instead. I wonder how long it will take for job ads in the game industry to bifurcate into AI (LLM) developer and Behaviour (game AI) developer.by daemin
- They already bifurcate in most any tech related job posting. You have the "AI/LLM" jobs that are full on llm koolaid and pretty vague about what your role in the job even entails, and then there's the "AI/ML" jobs that are just how they are calling the same old ML jobs these days. The title could be the same between the two, but its usually obvious from the post description what the job actually is.by asdff
- Unrelated but are there any games using LLMs or ML for the NPCs? I really want enemies that adapt to the player.
- I'm old enough to remember when AI meant a certain things, and games hijacked that to mean "some routines that make NPCs do things" and it's just gone from there. Gamers at the time were vocal about the "AI" not actually being AI, but they lost that battle.
The current use of AI for LLMs is a lot closer to the original intent that the "AI" in games ever was. It wasn't hijacked. It was retaken.
by wccrawford - In the first paragraph:
> While videogames are as profitable as ever on paper
And the linked article is about revenue going up YoY, not profit. And then it says:
> It's remarkably dissonant with, say, the current 'Xbox reset' which has Microsoft cancelling games and looking to ax studios left and right
Xbox in their own earnings report said their revenues dropped by 7% YoY.
Yeah OK, I guess games journalist are as bad as they've ever been.
by square_usual - The video game revenue growth is mostly mobile game and gacha game mtx, primarily in the Asian markets.by xboxnolifes
- Revenues overall are rising, but the only real growth right now is in China + East Asia, and in Roblox.
https://www.matthewball.co/all/presentation-the-state-of-vid...
by teamonkey - Are there sources for this? I'm seeing an 11% increase in revenue from their 2025 Q4 report[0], and still a 1% increase in their 2026 Q1 report[1], the off-season for the videogame industry. Hardware revenue's falling, but it's propped up with their Game Pass and game sales.
[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/earnings/FY-2026-Q1...
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/fy-2025-Q4...
edit: Tarn Adams is also an indie game developer, not a game journalist. Dwarf Fortress is highly influential in the indie game scene.
by prophesi - When we've used software to disrupt other industries to deliver more with fewer people we called that a good thing. And it is, because consumers tend to win. Games are a hit-driven business, so they're going to feel the squeeze faster than, say, SaaS, but it's coming for all of us. Software is now being disrupted. Reap the whirlwind.
I worked at a (very) well known media company in Hollywood during the Netflix disruption. This really doesn't sound all that different from a Hollywood exec mocking internet media in the early 2000s. People are trying to understand it and leverage it. Quality is bad. Then one day you wake up and it's taken over, because it kept improving. Setting aside the debate on AI use in the creative process, even if models never get better there are years of optimizations to be done on the tools/business side.
As a gamer, I'm actually excited for it. I want more diversity in games beyond what the current indie scene provides. If we can give smaller teams the horsepower to make what was considered AAA 5-10 years ago I will be quite happy as a consumer.
by madrox - Who's we? You're certainly not speaking for me.
Making things previously impossible possible? That's the business I joined.
Destroying people's livelihoods without care for the consequences while pursuing monopolies, capturing the value as rent seekers, and ultimately enshittifying entire industries?
Yeah, no, I know I didn't sign up for that, thanks.
And if you're thinking "wait that's not AI". Yes. That's precisely what these companies are trying to do.
- It's a huge mistake to think that indie teams would make better games if only they could balloon their projects to AAA-size.
Some of the most meaningful and engrossing gaming experiences of my life have come from 1-3 person teams, especially over the past few years. Meanwhile, the vast majority of AAA titles just feel like time-filling entertainment chow to me: fun-shaped but ultimately pointless. I would strongly argue that artistry and auterism is nearly impossible to preserve beyond a certain game size; the experience can't be focused by definition.
In any case, many of the most talented indie game devs are rejecting this technology outright.
by archagon - Netflix disruption might be an apt metaphor, since it did severely damage the industry and reduce the quality of its output. Those Hollywood execs were right, even if they were ultimately doomed. It's another step in the Sheinification of everything. If it happens to software too, it won't be a victory for anyone except the owners of software companies.by invalidptr
- Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore? I mean, companies seem to be having massive layoffs and placing ever more work on the remaining employees. At what point will the remaining employees just collapse?
Are we just reverting to the mean after years of zero interest rate policy? Would love for folks with experience working in tech in the 90s and 00s especially to chime in.
- I was working at a web shop in San Francisco when the Web 1.0 bubble burst. The period leading up to that was characterized by company execs buying themselves all kinds of expensive new cars and toys, and a kind of hysteria on the part of clients that their brick and mortar businesses were being left behind if they didn't spend gobs of money on websites that had all kinds of gizmos and information but were, essentially, just brochures with a contact form. The FOMO of "AI", whatever that means to individual decisionmakers, feels similar to that time. As does the grift. Every plumbing company and real estate agency back then wanted to say their business was online. Not being online was being left behind. Now they all want to say they're AI powered. Well, business owners and managers need to sound like they know what they're talking about, and brag about whatever they think they've gotten for their spending, especially when they don't have a clue whether it pencils out or not. That's why they were happier back then with a website they could say they paid $30k for than if they'd somehow gotten it done for a tenth of that.by noduerme
- Look at Strange Scaffold for a game dev company built around being a sustainable business where there aren’t any single ambitious “Bet the business” releases.
- It seems like Google, Microsoft, and Apple have all switched into "extract max profit" mode. They don't care about quality or even features anymore.
And it comes from the top: the CEOs are not caring anymore, so their lieutenants are not interested in doing any work either. So the companies get turned into fiefdoms without any central guiding direction.
by cyberax - I've worked for a few companies from 2000-2026 (2 startups, 2 medium companies), and overall, I would say they all had decent to great leadership. None of them were out to only maximize next quarter, all stressed being 100% honest with the customer, even if it meant disappointing them (i.e. we can't quite make that target, here's what we can do - this was for a consulting company), etc., and they were all trying to make the company grow AND be sustainable.
One startup didn't go too far (folded after 3 years), one grew to ~20 people, lasted for maybe 20 years total, I left after 2 years during the dot com crash.
Both of the medium companies are bigger now (I'm still working for one), and have generally positive outlook. I mean, you can't consistently be #1 in your industry when there are 2 companies with combined > 50 or 60% market share and roughly equal - some quarters, your competitor's 2-3 year plan will finish and deliver better for that quarter than your previous (now "old") product that is in the middle of a 2-3 plan, etc..
So they are out there, but it's RARELY in the "high profile" (FAANG/whatever) "move fast, break things" companies that you hear about a lot or that everyone wants to work for.
A friend said <ride sharing company> was like Game of Thrones come to life in a corporate setting, for example. Yet, some people got rich off it, I'm sure.
by hn_acc1 - Companies haven't been well run in decades, if ever, especially American ones. I've worked for about a dozen companies in my 30+ year career. None have been well run, most are out of business. I do design services now, and have worked with dozens of companies through that, and the pattern continues.
We don't have leaders, or people that can make hard decisions, or think for themselves. They all follow the same book of the day business trends. If you do think outside the box you aren't a team player and are rocking the boat.
by not_the_fda - > Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore?
If you mean the games industry, it was always poorly run. I worked in games in the 90s and 00s it was a cottage industry of nerds, many of whom had success with an 8bit game in the 80s (where they did everything: a one person team), to then have to run large teams of devs/artists/designers/etc without any leadership experience and more complex hardware.
Happy days :D
by louthy