I don't really write code anymore. It started with smart code suggestions in the IDE, and now I work in complete spec driven workflows, where the AI writes the code from a spec and I review and refine what comes back. As a software developer I see first hand how much of engineering runs on AI already, and it keeps growing.
Game development took it very differently.
Slop and the stigma
Game stores are getting a large amount of slop: low quality games, generated in bulk and uploaded to earn a buck. Players hate them, and the hate is growing. By now it covers AI in game development as a whole, and it lands on developers who never made any of it.
Developers with upcoming games try to prove that they don't use AI, just so they don't get review bombed. Stores flag the games that use it, or plan to, so players can pick out the potential slop. Steam shows an AI disclosure on the store page and itch.io has tags for it.
It's still a tool
I actively use AI in my work, so I find it odd that I shouldn't use it in my game development as well. It's a tool on each developer's toolbelt. You can use it in a skilled way or in a not so skilled way, and the slop in the stores is the second kind. In both cases it's just something that helps you reach the final result.
AI generated assets take work away from graphic designers and AI generated code takes it away from programmers, me included. That's how the world is changing right now, and there is probably not much we can do about it. Hand crafted, artisanal code will be a delicacy in the future.
Getting copied
Developers are afraid to post a demo now, because somebody might copy the game before it's done. I find that really frightening. We had game copies in the past as well, but never at the pace we have now. A game should build a community and an identity, something it can defend, and I doubt even those can be fully defended in this bright new future.
The AI label
I think AI should be used like any other tool, in an ethical way. Flooding a store with slop is not that, and neither is copying somebody else's game.
Putting a label on games for it is counterproductive. The label doesn't say how the AI was used, so the careful game and the slop get the same one, and the stigma goes to both.
The stores don't agree on what counts either. In January Valve reworded Steam's disclosure form: it now asks about the AI generated content players consume in the game, and leaves out the efficiency tools used behind the scenes, coding assistants included. On itch.io, AI generated code has a tag of its own. A game with hand drawn art and AI assisted code is clean in one store and labelled in the other.
Very soon there will be no games without AI somewhere in their development. That's the future we need to accept, and when it's here the label will be on every game in the store.