Where is the line of “no AI” exactly?
While the game certainly isn’t vibecoded, I would bet some Pocketpair devs used an LLM for a Python script, to figure out something in documentation, to point them somewhere over an error, maybe some Windows issue; you know, utilitarian things.
Artists likely use oldschool ML models in their graphics software, without even knowing it. Or maybe when processing textures to finish them. Or to search through assets, or documentation.
I’m just saying, if you’re strict with the definition, it would be really hard to block an entire dev studio from all “AI.” It would almost certainly seep in from casual use, legacy integration, or “oldschool” things like image recognition and processing.
It doesn’t mean they have to vibecode or ship slop assets, of course. When they say “no AI,” that’s what I hear, and exactly what I want.
But I think studios, especially larger ones, need to be careful about labels like “100% human,” lest something come to light that seems to contradict the guarantee.
I imagine by “AI” they mean strictly LLMs from OpenAI and other related sources. It’s more or less a consequence of the term being used as a catch-all by marketing teams even if it’s misleading.
They’ve for sure used machine learning tools in their development process, I have no doubt about that. I mean, that’s literally what code completion is. That’s been a thing for much longer than LLMs though, and it’s really only a supplement to the actual intentions & efforts of the devs using it. Stuff like that is useless if you don’t have any game development expertise.
But see, even in this interview, the lead is dodging code completion questions. As non-devs could interpret that as “AI in the game.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like the interviewee was ever asked about tools like code completion. The article focuses almost exclusively on ‘generative AI’ and PocketPair’s attitude towards its usage in game development. I don’t think it’s fair to consider it a dodging of questions if said questions seemingly weren’t brought up to begin with.
Besides, I doubt non-devs even really know about/understand machine learning tools in game development aside from the standard AI slop machines. For them code completion probably seems more like a standard programming tool as opposed to something more akin to an LLM, especially since most people already know about things like autocorrect through their phones and the like which is pretty similar.
That’s pretty rich coming from pocket pair. “We don’t use the art and design stealing machine, we steal the art and designs ourselves!”
That’s a good business model. “If our customers don’t like it, our employees don’t like it, and we can do business without it, why should we use it?”
Lol, how do you losers tokenmaxxing with that sort of attitude?
Careful, when the AIs get so good that you can ask them anything and they perfectly understand what you want and produce great results, you’re going to get left behind because… you won’t know how to use the… incredibly easy tools… hang on…
Listen as a 6-year prompt engineer I know exactly how to manipulate the AI to give me… well you know not a great results… yet but it’ll be great one day and then I’ll know how to say the archaic words cuz I will have already practiced, see it makes sense!
So with the proper incantation your
spellprompt will finally work? Remember to grow a beard and ponder the orb first.
And the stakeholders? Is no one going to think of the stakeholders?!
Beacuse minimize the effing costs or you fired
I’m not sure AI is cheaper now that AI companies are no longer artificially suppressing prices. Especially compared to the PR companies you need to pay if you use AI.
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Except they aren’t consistent or reliable, and can’t run 24x7 since nearly all agents need to be reset after a set number of tokens.
Oh you are talking about long context, I am talking more like pretext.js
Who could have possibly guessed that artists like doing art!
I remember there was a rumor going around Twitter when Palworld first launched that Pocketpair had used AI for some of their character designs, and there was some backlash, but it turned out to be false. Feeling some of that heat, even if it was unwarranted, probably also helped set their opinions on using AI for that kind of stuff.
If gamers don’t want it and your own staff doesn’t want to use it, no point in wasting money trying to force it.
Now try and convince the entire tech industry of that last sentence.
I am, and I’m doing exactly what it takes to convince the entire tech industry. I’m not buying their shit. They’ll either capitulate or there will be an alternative tech industry.
I ran into a research article a couple weeks back pointing out that devs that use AI were 25% less productive, despite all “consultants” claiming they should be 25% more productive.
Hopefully the tech industry starts waking up once they start having to maintain the giant mess they’ve made
I think the studio is taking the right lesson, but it doesn’t necessarily apply to the tech industry.
Software is good when it is average (standard, unsurprising), while entertainment is good when it is out of distribution. By definition, you can’t statistically sample good art and get good art at the output.
Apparently they used some AI generated textures but removed them later. They did have a game that included AI generating images as gameplay.
I remember there was a rumor going around Twitter when Palworld first launched that Pocketpair had used AI for some of their character designs, and there was some backlash, but it turned out to be false.
When was that officially confirmed? I’ve been waiting for an answer to this question for years. I had heard they had denied using AI for character designs, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or not.
Well I guess the article this post is about could tell you the answer.
But then you’d actually have to read it.
AI is the worst kind of bullshit fantasy because it convinces people to dehumanize themselves and others with a condescending sense of inevitability for a future that the technology does not provide any hard evidence for being inevitable.
Human artists are supremely valuable, fuck this “rational” economic system that pretends otherwise.
… but isn’t ai inevitable?
YouTube showing me the account that shared this YouTube link makes me feel so creeped out.
Hm. Don’t love that.
You have to turn that off in settings or remove the tracker part of the link (everything after the ?)
Thanks. I turned it off it settings now too, I don’t like that that was randomly introduced and not an opt in situation, but, I expect nothing less from Google.
And here I am going, yes I want to know where your bullshit is coming from…
I love Man Carrying Thing and this might be one of his most important performances yet!
It is rare for an actor’s work to completely capture my attention from beginning to end in a performance without my tastes becoming bored or the emotional heart strings the actors crudely pluck in me becoming tired and drawn out, but Man Carrying Thing had me paying attention for virtually his entire performance on this one!
It is truly his best work since Plankton Farts and Dies
But there were two guys there… which one was carrying thing?
You are the thing and the two men carry you forming a triangle.
Now that is some good marketing.
I bought Palworld just to spite Nintendo and thus far i haven’t regretted buying it.
Good.
Great. Cause if they aren’t paying people to make the game, I’m not paying to play the damn game.
Even if the game is free, I adhere by the rules of “time is money.”
I really hope they’re being sincere about these statements.
They kind of already went through the ringer with people accusing the pals of being AI generated pokemon (which was disproven by their lead artist).
This exclusionary, contemporary AI definition really grinds my gears.
What do we call the thing that governs NPC behavior now?
Behavior trees
State Machines?
It’s never been AI, but that’s what we called it anyway, and that’s what we’ll keep calling it.
if (...){ //.. if (...){ //.. if (...){ //.. if (...){ //.. if (...){ //... } else { //.. } else { //.. } else { //.. } else { //.. } else { //.. }fuzzy logic
Voodoo tech
> leftist brain
Or
> Right wing brain
Centrist libs just have the biggest brains. So just massive they can have so many diverse thoughts drifting around, never to collide.
I didn’t feel like typing that out and tried to be non partisan.
Guess I should have /s’ed
plus AI looks very strange in a picture or a video.
See, I don’t mind AI if it’s used for stuff like NPC interactions and what not, but not for the creation of assets or mechanics.
At least in it’s current iteration, AI can stand out like a sore thumb and once you see it, something is taken away from the experience.
I don’t think I’ve played a game where I’ve seen AI but this definitely applies to other faucets.
only if the dialogue is already pre-written by people.
Which other faucets?
Bathroom sink, outdoor, utility…
Stop, I can only get so wet.
Art, news articles, etc.
Facets?
The more you know. I always thought faucet was used colloquially like “another faucet of information.”
I stand corrected.
Well… Not to confuse the matter but a ‘faucet of information’ could technically be correct, if you’re referring to a source of information. A FACET is like another side of something. A different face, if you will
Yeah, that could be a metaphor, I think. Or simile? I have forgotten my English lessons
Yeah its more like different facets of the same diamond, in my head at least
I guess more appropriately would be the same gem cut in different facets
Idk English is weird lol
I never thought about that, but “faucet” in that context totally makes sense too! That’s delightful—my partner had a very similar thing where they thought “SMH” meant “so much hate”, or SMDH “so much damn hate”. In all contexts, it just kinda worked!
Almost certainly you’ve played a game where some of the code was AI generated. That’s pretty much impossible to notice.
I don’t know any coders who doesn’t use any kind of llm help these days. From prompting a snippet to fill blown agents.
Then you’re 100% living in a bubble. High. Full time software engineer who does not use LLMs. Most of my friends do not use LLMs. There’s way more of us than you think
I’m not saying you don’t exist, and I’m happy for you that you have an opportunity to code yourself, but yeah where I’m at it’s a slumbering art.
Senior software dev here at a company you know of. I was forced to use Claude for a week at my job and it was absolutely miserable. I hate LLMs and don’t use them in any way, shape, or form. I do spend a lot of time cleaning up the fucking slop written by some of my colleagues who have no qualms about unleashing them on our codebase which is already bursting with tech debt.
Like, it’s gotten to the point where I check potential new dependencies for
AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md/Claude as a commit co-author/.cursorin.gitignorebefore I use them. It’s obviously not possible to avoid using code written with LLMs, but I’ve had too many fucking problems at this point, so I’m going to try.Oh I agree it creates many problems, especially when going full vibe. I’m a tech lead at a company you will never hear about and we’re being pushed to experiment with llms, trying to find ways to increase productivity.
Engineer/programmer here. Me and my coworker have never used AI to code.
We have a mature codebase, there’s no point to have an LLM make code for us.
Hi.
Nice to meet you!
That’s why I’ve said “once you see it.” I’m fully aware of vibe coding and I know it’s useful to help speed things along and cut down development time.
I think I was more leaning towards assets than anything else, though I’ve seen people argue about mechanics and code, so I figured I’d include it.
It’s more noticeable than you think in execution time, memory usage and file size
Ooh instead of the same shitty dialogue from unimportant NPCs they can vary what they say every time you talk to them? That genuinely sounds like it’d improve immersion but we’re so beyond that level that I don’t find it very appealing at the moment.
Typically NPC dialogue also serves more than immersion, such as helping the player solve a quest or find a hidden thing. Some are for world building, too, but even that might be risky with AI since you may end up with inconsistencies that would actually be counter to immersion in the long run.
Like, you don’t get actors to ad lib whole scripts in a movie no matter how versed there are in the story.
Look up the Mantella mod for Skyrim.
General Sam has a great video showcasing what the mod can do. He literally ends up going on a couple random quests with a fuckin bear because some town guards killed the bear’s friend. It was awesome.
The sad part is, it could with a little tweaking.
But that well has been so heavily poisoned by corporate bubble blowing interests, that attempting anything with it is a potential death sentence for your entire project.
This is the same studio that gave us AI: Art Impostor. Guess that is how they learned it’s hated.
I’m buying palworld one day.
It leaves early access soon. Maybe consider marking the calendar?
July 10th to be exact
No idea why you got downvoted
I’m wondering if it’s some people upset from another thread just being petty.
Edit: upon looking at my comment history, almost all of them have a new downvote that wasn’t there before. I definitely upset someone, apparently, enough for them to go through my entire comment history and downvote each one I’ve ever made.
Some people need to get outside and learn to actually enjoy it. Then I bet they would not find their time best spent combing someone’s post history to down vote the comments.
I honestly feel bad for people like that.
