The Other Side: Game Dev Tim Cain Isn’t Helping In The AI In Gaming Debate
from the nuance-cuts-both-ways dept
You’re all sick of me saying we need to have more nuance in the discussion about AI use in the gaming industry. I get it. I’m also not going to stop. And I hope you will have noticed that I have called for nuance in both directions. While I’m more optimistic than many in our community that there is a place for this technology in the industry, and that it could actually have some net positive effects therein, I’m also not blind to the potential negative consequences. Concerns about industry jobs are a very real thing. A desire to protect the artistic intent of game makers is a worthy enterprise. Quality of output is paramount.
That’s why I’ve been repeating over and over again that we should be talking about how AI will be used in games, not if. The “if” question has already been answered in the affirmative, at least for some portion of the industry. Now we need to build very real guardrails around the “how.”
And, to be frank, comments such as those from Fallout co-creator Tim Cain are wildly unhelpful in the opposite direction.
Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says a world where AI generates games, TV shows, and even doctor’s appointments is inevitable, and he’s even “looking forward” to that future.
In arguably the veteran game developer’s saddest “fun Friday” video ever, Cain envisions a world in which dead MMOs come back to life with AI-generated players mimicking real-life personalities, where generative AI makes Joey from Friends a lawyer instead of a struggling actor, and where you take vacations in VR. Yes, really.
He goes way, way beyond even that. He talks at some length about using AI to create more episodes of retired shows that people still hunger for. As a massive fan of Firefly, I can’t tell you how ecstatic I’ve been these past several weeks with Nathan Fillion’s announcement that the show would be coming back in an animated form to build on the story that was infamously canceled by Fox after only 1 season. If that announcement was instead made by the rightsholder and said the new episodes would be created whole cloth using AI and that they would be customizable and tailored to my desires, my reaction would have been horror, not excitement.
AI needs to be a tool on the perimeter, not the creative force itself. I don’t want the pen telling me the story of Odysseus; I want the writer to use the pen to do so. And if the pen turns into a typewriter, which then turns into a word processor, that all works. There is still a human being telling the story.
Even Cain’s remarks tailored specifically for the gaming industry ring super hollow.
Cain goes on to say this will be especially handy for MMO players, in particular those who miss being able to play games that aren’t active anymore. “Have an AI make a local server,” he proposes. “Great, now you can play it again. Oh, it’s empty? Fill it with AI players. Have it watch videos of people who have played that game and just fill it up with players, and it mimics their personalities.”
Look, Cain is a veteran of the industry who was instrumental to one of the most beloved video game IPs of all time, but with all due respect, the idea of playing Ultima Online with AI-generated players designed to mimic the personalities of my friends who I used to play with… is genuinely one of the grimmest, most dire, dystopian realities I can possibly fathom. Likewise, my heart sinks at the thought of playing AI-generated stories with AI-generated characters that I can change however I want. That sounds like it would entirely rob a game, or any work of art, of its artistic intent. But alas, Cain reckons this is all inevitable, so get ready.
This is what the AI detractors are worried about. And when you hear an industry veteran speak so glowingly about gamers operating within these soulless arenas designed merely to mimic the authentic fun that these games produced, it’s easy to understand the concern. This isn’t helpful. Pretending to not understand that the very fucking point of MMOs is to play with other human beings in a single realm, not ginned-up robots pretending to be human, is incredibly frustrating.
And Cain, oddly enough, seems completely unconcerned with artistic intent at all. There is no reason why his example of requesting changes to a TV show wouldn’t translate into a video game. And if people can just customize games not through mods, but through fundamental changes driven by AI requests, then there is no game anymore. There is merely a shell of a game where the player is then free to remix it to extents that transform the intent of the maker completely.
I had to search around a lot to see if Cain was being sarcastic or making a fake attempt at over the top AI evangelism purely to make a point. Everything I have seen and read indicates that’s not what this was. And, again, that makes all of this very unhelpful if you want to get into some real discussions about where this technology should be used and where it shouldn’t.
Filed Under: ai, artistic intent, tim cain, video games
Comments on “The Other Side: Game Dev Tim Cain Isn’t Helping In The AI In Gaming Debate”
I told y’all that I call generative AI “the Emptiness Machine” for a reason.
Tim, AI detractors are worried about its impact on jobs, the environment, and the economy, and we’ve explained that to you so many times that when you say what we’re worried about is bots in Ultima Online it kinda seems like the misunderstanding is willful.
Re:
I strongly believe that some of Geigner’s commentary on the games industry here at Techdirt have been huge misfires. The one article about Animal Crossing trying to paint Nintendo as being scummy when they were cracking down on (among other things) the equivalent of WoW gold sellers or Diablo item sellers. Or this article about Angry Birds getting rid of its free version and not understanding the actually scummy reasons why. These two were the biggest ones that stuck out to me over the years.
The whole AI evangelism thing he’s started, though, and keeps doubling down on, takes the cake. It feels embarrassing for both him and Techdirt. Like he’s become the site’s in-house Ross Pruden.
Re: Re:
While it’s nice to have a fan, I think calling me an “AI Evangelist” is pretty laughably wrong. Especially in an article where I’m specifically criticizing what appears to be a clear AI evangelist.
Irony is entertaining….
Re: Re: Re:
I mean, looking at those two articles, it’s clear you don’t understand the ‘gamer’ mindset.
You probably have trouble understanding the ‘consumer’ mindset either. We’re really not driven by ideology, we just want something that works.
If AI could produce something that works I’d be there for it. But it can’t, so I’m not.
According to Mike it makes for a pretty OK calendar app. But it still can’t program or design a game and it can’t produce stable art assets, I’ve tried reading what it writes and it can’t build a consistent world, and while it can ‘program code’, the code it produces is buggy and it can’t be trusted to learn to be better, unlike a human who will actually learn… from what I’ve heard, programming code with AI is a lot like programming code with an mostly trained intern who’s had a TBI and can’t learn, and who occasionally makes really weird delusional mistakes.
It’s just a suckass tool that only gets worse the more you invest in it. I guess it makes an ok calendar and note taking app, but I can’t help but feel a specifically programmed app might do that better.
Re: Re: Re:2
Forgive me, but I don’t think you get to be the final arbiter of “gamer mindset”. I’m a gamer myself. It is my primary source of entertainment. I’m not sure why your mindset should be any more dispositive than mine.
But what I definitely appreciate about your take here is this: “If AI could produce something that works I’d be there for it. But it can’t, so I’m not.”
Outstanding; we’re fully aligned. Your gripe is not with the use of AI generally at all, then, you simply care about the quality of what is produced. I’m right there with you. You won’t find a single word I’ve written that suggests that AI is ready to be used in any specific way in its end state RIGHT NOW. Go look, you won’t find it.
In fact, I’ve said repeatedly that we’re still in the infancy stages of its use in gaming. This technology is likely to get better and, as a result, produce better results. That won’t happen without it being used, trialed, tested, and experimented with. That’s the phase we’re in right now.
So your complaint appears to be that we haven’t reached the finish line when the starter’s gun went off a few moments ago. I think you’re RIGHT that the technology isn’t where it needs to be to be heavily used in gaming…yet.
Re: Re: Re:3
From what I understand of the math behind it, not only will it not get better, it will only get worse. It’s a research dead end, a false path with nothing down it that will not lead to “AGI”.
It’s also a bubble, and one that’s going to pop in the near future.
Re: Re: Re:4
Artificial general intelligence and “AI as a tool” are two different things. There’s no way to say one way or the other whether AI as a tool will get better or worse over time.
Bubbles bursting doesn’t get rid of the thing that caused the bubble in the first place.
Re: Re: Re:5
The math predicts the result that as the complexity behind the AI gets larger, the AI’s correctness gets worse.
Behold, a news article confirming the math:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/technology/ai-hallucinations-chatgpt-google.html
If AI is going to be useful as a tool, it needs to be narrowly implemented for narrow purposes.
At which point it requires fewer computer resources to use a purpose made tool.
Re: Re: Re:6
Yes, which is already being done with beneficial results. You’re assuming that the AI tools talked about in the article above are the general-purpose ones.
Re: Re: Re:3
So how many dead people are worth it to you?
Re: Re: Re:
Is this the first time Timmy’s openly admitted to having a sock puppet in the comments?
Re:
I truly don’t get the AI takes that techdirt have written. It’s like the writers go from being sensible journalists to the fox news person interviewing trump asking him hard questions like what his favorite color is.
Also, you should be worried about your privacy, and all your info that will definitely get hacked.
Re:
They don’t have to defend AI against legitimate complaints if they only acknowledge the fringe, nitpicky ones that they can paint as springing from entitlement.
Poe’s law.
There is no possible mockery of the AI cult that can be stupider than what the true believers spew.
I think the thing you are forgetting here is that being a veteran of an industry doesn’t mean you are good for it, or that you have good values, or are even the same person who got started in it.
For example I recently saw Peter Molyneux back in the news. The guy was behind Populous, Black & White, and Fable. What did he try to do? Go all in on NFTs and crypto.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/04/how-legacy-became-a-costly-crypto-bust-for-players-and-a-business-win-for-peter-molyneux/
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/peter-molyneuxs-right-about-one-thing-its-sad-how-no-one-seems-to-care-about-god-games-anymore/
Those most interested in AI are those working in corporate studios that seem to only view games as a means to a profit and nothing more.
Amazon released… AI podcasts… because this does anything useful at all.
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-hear-the-highlights-join-the-chat
The thing is, is that AI use in the corporate world isn’t being used to generate great things for customers, it is being used to cut corners, cut costs, and amplifies all the shittiest traits of capitalism.
What makes you think the developer being forced to work 80 hours a week with the threat of layoffs is going to use AI to make good things even if they want to? They will use it to do what is demanded of them.
Windows 11 can’t release a working update. Github can’t safely do it’s core functions of version control. What makes you think the gaming industry that has just been throwing higher prices, microtransactions, half assed remakes, and corporate slop are going to use AI to do good things? Like come on.
I’ll challenge you again. Go, do, some, actual fucking journalism.
Speak to developers from some of the top most loved games. Vampire Survivors, Stardew Valley, Baldur’s Gate 3, Expedition 33, Terraria, Balatro, Hades, Slime Rancher, Slay the Spire, Dave the Diver, Factorio, Dispatch, Dead Cells, Split Fiction.
Re:
You can’t expect Geigner to just suddenly start performing journalism after this long.
Re:
And ask them what?
Comments under the article are for engaging with the article. Coming here to post about different articles by the same author is stupid, those comments belong under the articles they reference. if you don’t agree with Tim try arguing your case but don’t just post completely unrelated points.
I come here because the articles are thoughtful not because i agree with every article.
And Tim makes a good point that you’re too distracted to notice or engage with.
Tim, you are so close.
In all of your examples of things that are ok, the writer is the one choosing the words. How would feel about a pen that chooses the words for the writer? Presumably not good because the human isn’t telling the story.
The pen to typewriter to word processor is a strawman argument that doesn’t address the reality of how AI works. If AI isn’t choosing the words (the core function of an LLM), then what are you having that tool do?
We all know what AI will mainly be used for.
It’s exactly things like Tim Cain that make the nuanced discussions impossible at the current time. The AI fervor feels exactly like the Dot Com bubble, the NFT fervor (and more generally the hype around blockchain), and even the idiot amounts of hype telecom companies were putting out around 5G.
Dot Com bubble popped. NFTs fell out of favor entirely. 5G is the odd one out, not having collapsed, but definitely having fallen far short of the hype.
We keep getting stories of AI failures, and we’re now starting to see the enshittification curve come in as the AI companies start looking for rent (various posts about shifting back to junior developers / because the AI tokens are running up a bill).
I would love for there to be a considered, careful approach to the uses of AI, but that’s not going to happen until the corpos have enough rude awakenings to kill the marketing hype.
And in the meantime there are serious ethical concerns about AI that are not actually misguided:
– We are already on the wrong track with climate change; the AI companies want absurd amounts of energy and water to fuel their data centers. There’s an understanding amongst the populace that the people will likely end up asked to ration their own water and power usage while the AI companies get subsidized (I’ve seen some headlines where this has already happened). That is a threat to how one lives, and could become a threat to survival.
When it’s a question of “do I pay my energy bill this month or do I have groceries this month” – there’s no room for nuance.
I applaud the idea of taking a nuanced approach to it, but I haven’t seen a nuanced approach from your own posts to the very real concerns of the detractors, and that (I think) is why you don’t get the response you want from the comments.
So yes, please continue to rag on people like Tim Cain for things like this, but also please get a better understanding of what the detractors are really concerned about.
Re:
I also think that the fact that there haven’t been any Techdirt articles about PC component prices skyrocketing since late last year because of AI companies pre-purchasing chips and more that haven’t even been made yet, it’s a pretty glaring hole in the body of work Techdirt’s been putting out about AI. AI is making goods more expensive and less available through this component buy-up. If Geigner wants to write an article about the intersection of gaming and AI, he could write about how that buy-up is causing delays and price hikes on games hardware, and making it difficult for people building their own PCs to get into the hobby.
I’d also love to see an article, maybe from Bode, about the rise of slop trying to game the systems on YouTube, with a discussion about stuff like these slop videos about WWE.
Re: Re:
Or slop videos by WWE, considering the company has used generative AI in at least three separate videos in the past year, most recently in a video that aired this past Tuesday on NXT. I mean, it’s not like WWE is known within the industry as having some of the best video editors around and for making promo videos that people still talk about years later or anything~.
Re: Re:
I’ve been feeling the bite from this one in particular. I’m not going to be buying a new graphics card for a looooong time because of prices.
I mean, AI seems to produce crappy results.
I know enough about programming and topology to know that giving an AI more computational resources and training will only worsen the hallucination problem, not improve it.
And… that’s really all I need to know about AI.
Worthless tool being used in worthless ways.
Getting people to actually consider the problem before it inevitably happens, actually seems rather helpful. It is a real discussion- people like Cain genuinely want to use it that way, and they don’t think they even need to hide it.
If someone’s response to that was ultimately, this technology simply isn’t going away. You can rage against this literal machine all you like, it will be in use. it would probably feel pretty bad, eh?
If you don’t want this to happen, it’s worth discussing how to disincentivize it from happening. Because people like Cain seem confident the market isn’t going to do it on it’s own- quite the opposite.
Re:
It’s also very much a consent-manufacturing approach, much like…well, the comparison is a bit distasteful, I know, but the “it’s happening whether you like it or not” stuff sounds very much like what a rapist would say to make their victim compliant.
And the bullshit parade persists
People who don’t actually have the skill to produce games should really just stay the ^(@# out of debates of how games should be made.
Seriously, just STFU.
If the end result is crap, don’t buy it, pan it, attack the devs for being lazy.
I want better AI in games. I want NPCs that have personality and wit, I want generative worlds that make every playthrough different and make me feel my decisions impact the story in real ways. I want big open worlds where every door actually opens to an interior that fits the dimension of the exterior. Somehow people protest the use of “AI slop” when the problem is these idiots seem to accept so much human slop. Human slop games, television, movies. It’s f***ing everywhere!
No. We, at least i, am not sick of nuance per se,but the empty and false call for nuance where the only nuance involved ignores 90% of the shit. We’ve been over this.
Do you want to have a nuanced conversationabout wackaloon authoritarianism? There might be some good part of itburied deep somewhere, which is totally worth the rest of it. Especially if you’re a privileged white male jackass.
I have seen some of Tim Cain’s YouTube videos and found him to have some useful ideas and opinions. This really isn’t one of them. What’s the point of releasing a “game” that people can completely change. In my opinion, the best use of gen ai in a game would be one where players’ actions can change how npcs react to a player.
But for that kind of open ended story to work, it would still require a human developer to set the story’s main direction. Not just let the player prompt something else.
it's not AI detractors
It’s AI realists about that generative AI wears no clothes.
We are fucking up the entire world with what we have unleashed with generative AI. Not all AI as that’s been around 70 years, but generative is just shit and nobody wants to acknowledge it. Energy costs are exploding from it amongst everything else. Are there some benefits? Yes. Do the ends justify the means? No. Expensive RNG (which is all generative AI is) is not helpful. Other parts of AI are helpful – but this being the primary use being shown to consumers is a problem that nobody seems to want to acknowledge.
It’s the bitcoin problem all over again, and the same arguments are being made for it to continue and at the same expense of literally everyone
Re:
Yes, I concur.