AI Usage in Indie Games

space_goblin · Dec 29 2025

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right spot for this sort of discussion, but I’ve been curious about the use of AI for indie devs especially given recent articles about key games winning or being disqualified for using generative AI.

What are your guys thought on AI usage especially for indie devs in a small budget and small team?

For example, If ai art is used in the conceptualization phase for mood and inspiration but never makes it into the final shipped title, is that deemed acceptable?

Additionally, if something like midjourney were used to create references for a character, and the final design took some inspiration from said design but modified it, is that deemed acceptable?

Lastly, what about using ai for notetaking or documentation organization?

Looking forward to hearing your guys thoughts!

Rima · Dec 29 2025

Until it becomes impossible to avoid, if I see a game that was made with AI, I'm not going to buy it. Not only for the basic unethical, planet-fucking nature of the tech, but also....Why should I pay to play a game you couldn't even be bothered to pay to make?

One of the big benefits of indie games, supposedly, is that they're more creative than big projects, take more risks, make things more unique because they're less corporate, less controlled than in big studios. If you're going to use AI, you've basically taken all that away, because it's only really good for shitting out generic slop; it won't make anything risky, anything original, anything actually new. It's not creative.

Using AI under the excuse of "it's impossible to make X on an indie budget otherwise" pisses me off. The sometimes shitty reality is you have to scope to what you can do, and I'd still rather that than indies have a greater scope because they can increase their possibilities by having AI crap a load of it out. Not to mention, going back one step, those limits are often what leads to the reputation of indie games as more creative in the first place; their greater limits force them to innovate and find clever ways to get the most out of what they can create.

AI art has tells, but if you're using it as the concepting stage, that's probably going to be impossible to see in the final product if you don't disclose it, if you're trying to use it as a basis and not just go straight from there. But that'll still churn out generic slop in all probability, because your concepts are going to be generic slop. How can you make something interesting if the very foundations aren't interesting?

I wouldn't trust documentation to an AI. It can't reliably tell me that 2+2 is 4.

zetheros · Dec 29 2025

Games operate with two currencies; dollars and reputation.

An indie company will start with a high amount of reputation in their wallet due to being an underdog, but a low amount of dollars. Using AI will 100% damage an indie studio's reputation to the point where it negates the reputation boost of being an underdog. There are negative reviews on the game at my work purely because we used AI, despite my warnings

Joao Sapiro · Dec 29 2025

At the end of the day, what matters is what the consumers think of it with their wallet. Dont forget that since Artists "know how the sausage is made" they have more emotional responses to AI and their useage ( their validity isnt the point on my post btw ). My friend group doesnt care if a game uses AI or not, all they want is to enjoy their games at the end of a day and couldnt care less about Anti-AI activism. And the market shows that sadly, the consumer doesnt care. At the end of the day we only can individually make a stance like Rima does. To me, i only play older videogames so yeah xD

Barto · Dec 30 2025

I personally wouldn't buy a game that used AI, most people won't care if it was heavily modified or even didn't end up in the final product and others would, as Zetheros said, if you do this type of move when you still have the benefit of the doubt people will start to see your studio and the people putting their name in public for it with other eyes, and if the game is bad on top of that, that's it, it's over for you, you will probably be forever the guy who used AI to make a shitty game and maybe even be tagged as a scammer

sacboi · Dec 30 2025

@space_goblin said:

"Additionally, if something like midjourney were used to create references for a character, and the final design took some inspiration from said design but modified it, is that deemed acceptable?"

Personally, not even close!

Because briefly generative ai doesn't create, midjourney + others of it's ilk were callously released into the wild consequently, it's collective ML algorithm committed unadulterated theft, minus any programed constraint or oversight whatsoever as I think pretty much their authors had intended. Thus exponentially amassing scraped copyright infringed datasets, year on year - then frankly regurgitating 'slop' on demand too mainly an indifferent uneducated user-base, since.

Now here on PC I'd suggest browse a few discussions on the subject for further info, recommending

Is there a protest going on right now at Artstation?

Which IMHO include a few insights that preempt what we're currently going through.

Joao Sapiro · Dec 30 2025

Barto said:

I personally wouldn't buy a game that used AI, most people won't care if it was heavily modified or even didn't end up in the final product and others would, as Zetheros said, if you do this type of move when you still have the benefit of the doubt people will start to see your studio and the people putting their name in public for it with other eyes, and if the game is bad on top of that, that's it, it's over for you, you will probably be forever the guy who used AI to make a shitty game and maybe even be tagged as a scammer

sure, and i totally see your point and to some extent agree ! now regarding how people will see the game, thats up to the consumer, you cant predict what the outcome will be based on your worldview, there are good games that used AI, and people didnt bat an eye for that, same with bad games, its out of our control what people think since its unpredictable, the only thing that will directly impact is : did the target audience buy it or not ?

Barto · Dec 30 2025

Joao Sapiro said:

Barto said:

I personally wouldn't buy a game that used AI, most people won't care if it was heavily modified or even didn't end up in the final product and others would, as Zetheros said, if you do this type of move when you still have the benefit of the doubt people will start to see your studio and the people putting their name in public for it with other eyes, and if the game is bad on top of that, that's it, it's over for you, you will probably be forever the guy who used AI to make a shitty game and maybe even be tagged as a scammer

sure, and i totally see your point and to some extent agree ! now regarding how people will see the game, thats up to the consumer, you cant predict what the outcome will be based on your worldview, there are good games that used AI, and people didnt bat an eye for that, same with bad games, its out of our control what people since its unpredictable, the only thing that will directly impact is : did the target audience buy it or not ?

that's true, but it's a very risky movie for people who don't have much resources besides they reputation but i don't really care, at the end of the day isn't my name and isn't my time going on that, gamers are professional consumers, most don't care if it's bad(as long as isn't too bad) or good they just consume like a force of nature. the surge of nsfw slop games on steam shows pretty well how there's public for anything out there

zetheros · Dec 30 2025

Joao Sapiro said:

the only thing that will directly impact is : did the target audience buy it or not ?

Well, yea, it's now up to C-suite to decide what is less expensive; paying their art/development teams as per usual, or using generative AI and taking a... now I'm totally guessing here; maybe a 5-10% potential revenue loss.

Or at my work; paying the devs and also taking the reputation hit. Double whammy, wheee!

I wish I could use the same logic to rob my neighbors houses. Technically, I know when they're out of the house and since I work from home I could break in and, well, I'd get stuff and it'd be cheaper for me, ya know pop on over for a quick sneaky-scroungy and snoopy. Turn on all the faucets, eat one of their nature valley granola bars. Normal CFO things

Joao Sapiro · Dec 30 2025

zetheros said:

Joao Sapiro said:

the only thing that will directly impact is : did the target audience buy it or not ?

Well, yea, it's now up to C-suite to decide what is less expensive; paying their art/development teams as per usual, or using generative AI and taking a... now I'm totally guessing here; maybe a 5-10% potential revenue loss.

Or at my work; paying the devs and also taking the reputation hit. Double whammy, wheee!

I wish I could use the same logic to rob my neighbors houses. Technically, I know when they're out of the house and since I work from home I could break in and, well, I'd get stuff and it'd be cheaper for me, ya know pop on over for a quick sneaky-scroungy and snoopy. Turn on all the faucets, eat one of their nature valley granola bars. Normal CFO things

This is why its hard to have a nuanced talk about these aspects when false equivalence fallacies are thrown around to negate any type of discussion in good faith to this topic.

I always try to look at both sides of an issue and inform myself and rely solely on facts of what is going on, and discarding those facts is conductive to "not going anywhere", all in all, like i said : its the consumers, the ones that pay for the product, that decide what is acceptable to them as per the original OP question.

P.S : im not in favour nor against AI, i need to understand more of it to form an opinion and thats where i stand at the moment.

zetheros · Dec 30 2025

yes, I do the same with american politics. I like to watch Hassan and Asmongold cover the exact same topic, with both videos running at the same time. My conclusion is that it's very surprising WW3 hasn't happened yet, and that the brainrot leaking out of my ears tastes like camembert

Two Listen · Dec 30 2025

Most consumers are probably not super interested in how a game was made. Depending on your price point I think it would be possible as an indie developer to use supplemental AI and still generate some revenue if the core concept was "fun" enough that your average Joes would be fine dropping $X on it.

That being said, I would never personally consider it. As others have mentioned, AI is best at what it's seen in abundance. You would struggle to get anything particularly creative and unique from it, and what results you do have will not be your own. Even using (generative) AI for "mood and inspiration" when nothing's stopping anyone from browsing Artstation or using a google image search instead - I'd consider it fairly lazy at best, if not outright dishonest. The black box nature of generative AI makes people comfortable using it for "inspiration" and then just straight up copying the results, when they would not feel as comfortable doing that from other references. There are also potential legal complications - in the states at least, you cannot copyright AI generated works - which is only part of why our legal team at work is very adamant that AI not be used in the creation of core characters, logos or ideas that would be considered integral to the game/brand. And what if the game actually took off? Do you want to do an interview and reveal how much you had AI handle?

As folks like @Rima mentioned, indie games are often known - and prized for their creativity, and labor of love/sweat of the brow pursuits. Why anyone would want to throw that away for quick gains - potentially at the cost of reputation, is beyond me. Especially when you're small and reputation matters more. There comes a point where folks need to ask themselves - if you're not willing to learn or sacrifice in the pursuit, are you really that passionate about it? I think most indie games would find more success shipping a limited scope, or with arguably "worse" art, if it were evident that the developers poured themselves into the crafting of it. Shipping a title where you asked Gemini to show you what game to make and how to do it ain't that.

Your last bit might touch on one of the more "acceptable" uses - note taking, documentation. Probably wouldn't want to trust it and have it write up anything official, but I don't think most people would shit a brick discovering that you used a text-to-speech/Copilot summary to jot down things you were brainstorming out loud in your bedroom.

Edit: I am made to realize I'm responding to a user with two threads that are both almost survey-esque questions, and I'm not sure how I feel about that...

kanga · 1:08AM

The thread poster isn't even a vertex

Why would you hand over the most 'fun' part of game creation? Concepting, modelling, texturing, rigging, animation to a filter made up of other people's/victims work? Jeez, coding, marketing, mind numbing meetings are the first crap you should get rid of, the rest is pure joy by comparison. Why give up the good stuff? Is it because you want to make a million with the push of a button?

AI Usage in Indie Games

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