Personal Account - GameDev (former id software) - Armchair Physics - Twitter Prisoner - Light is too slow
Dallas, TX USofA
Joined March 2008
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"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould
It's as simple as Valve buying consumer goodwill that's on the table. And it's a cheap way to earn it with a certain segment of consumers. In 3-5yrs revealed preference will paint a different story.
The line of hand made or artisan production lags automation. Most hand made watches for instance are CNC milled pieces being hand assembled. Most couturiers don't make their own fabrics from scratch. In both cases though people will still pay top dollar for that hand made label.
Digital goods are likely to fall into the grooves in the road left behind by all automation.
Been thinking a lot about AI disclosure for games, since it's been a hot topic.
Steam requires disclosure for player-facing content created with the help of AI tools, but says efficiency gains from AI development tools aren't the focus.
Let's say I'm making a tree mesh for my game.
Two obvious endpoints:
• I manually model it in Blender. No disclosure.
• I generate it using Tripo/Meshy. Disclosure.
Now let's interpolate from t=0 to t=1:
1) I model the tree, but use a Codex-written exporter.
2) I model the tree, but use Codex-written UV, LOD and geometry optimization tools.
3) I model the tree, but write some scripts, with Codex help, to automate branch placement, leaf distribution, etc.
4) I automate more of the modelling until I've written a procedural tree generator.
5) I design and write my own procedural tree generator, with Codex helping debug and optimize it.
6) I design the procedural tree generator, but Codex writes the implementation.
7) I give Codex reference images, ask it to suggest improvements to my design, then implement those suggestions myself.
8) Same as above, but Codex implements the suggested improvements.
9) I give Codex reference images and ask it to design and implement the generator itself.
10) I use that generator, manually selecting and tweaking parameters until I'm happy with the trees.
11) Codex operates the generator and chooses the parameters, but I review and approve the results.
12) Codex operates the generator, chooses the parameters, and selects which trees ship, without my involvement.
13) I ask Codex to operate Blender directly and create the trees.
14) I generate the trees using Tripo/Meshy.
Under a literal reading, at every point in that list, the player-facing content was "created with the help of AI tools".
At what point did this cross from AI-assisted development into AI-generated art?
Is this going to be the same for everyone?
After being in idtech for almost two decades I’ve picked up learning Unreal the last couple months. Claude has been a good rubber duck for this considering how large the ecosystem is for it to draw on. Definitely saves a lot of time.
This. Also a lot of game devs became programmers out of necessity. If you get that time back to focus on other aspects of the project it helps create value.
I'm not sure a lot of people understand what game coders actually do. We're not spending 9 hours a day finely hand crafting artisan software and expressing our inner dreams... 90% of the time we are fighting compilers and existing architecture, having to work out how undocumented code works, and tracking down obscure bugs and behavioural issues.
Most of game programming is just difficult, tedious, laborious grunt work, and the cognitive load we have to endure to get anything done is tiring and frustrating. No game coder is doing it for this 90% of the job.
We make games because the 10% that IS actually about making things fun and expressing ourselves is so incredibly rewarding it makes the other 90% bearable.
Now imagine if there was a tool, some kind of AI agent maybe, which could do most of the 90% grunt work for you, leaving you to just make all the decisions and express your creativity. How amazing would that be. How completely revolutionary would that be.
Now officially no longer an id->zenimax->microsoft employee. Today was my last day.
Feeling good about the future. Lot of new adventure just down the road.
Great episode. Nice to hear what Empty Vessel is up to. Also a lot of reminiscing for me on the 2016 days.
We thought we had something special but we truly didn’t know how it’d be received publicly.
Our guiding light was the audience response to the Quakecon 2014 demo.
Podcast out now with @epalalic
We cover his time working at ID Software on DOOM 2016 & DOOM Eternal, working with @Mick_Gordon founding the studio @emptyvesselplay and their debut game @playdefect and more....
youtu.be/hEObKR4Uc_Q
Dustin Land retweeted
I have now created an ID Software Interview/Clip Playlist for people that want to go down the rabbit hole on ID Software.
As I do more ID Software interviews I will add them to this playlist. Enjoy!
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
Really just seems like the big labs are running up against the infra ceiling while their moats erode so they’re turning to the government to build the moat for them.
If they thought they had a real deployable advantage they wouldn’t surrender it.
All that crunch only to be cast aside like a leper the day before launch. A good portion of the laid off team is still recovering from crunch.
"We had people that worked in Hollywood for 20 years and game development for 10 and said that this was the worst crunch they'd been a part of."
EXCLUSIVE—DOOM: The Dark Ages Revelations Faced ‘Worst Crunch’ in Franchise History
insider-gaming.com/doom-the-…
Was excited to hear this about our former colleagues.
Live service dev gets forced onto a lot of teams that aren’t built for it. It takes the difficult task of making a great game and amplifies the pain and cost in every dimension.
Just because something is ubiquitous doesn’t mean it’s easy. And that ubiquity makes it tempting to just bootstrap to every project.
Harvey Smith and fellow Arkane Austin veterans announce a new studio, Black Pony Immersive gamedeveloper.com/business/h…
There’s been lots of bad news for games over the last several years. However, signs of new life are emerging. Sheer creative will won’t let some people rest.
Finally playing Ultrakill. Been in the library a bit. Really good game.
It feels like if you took DOOM Eternal’s aerial weapons juggling combat and steered harder into that formula.
My thoughts on the modern DOOM trilogy
2016: This is my vibe. I always liked the pacing and atmosphere best.
Eternal: I liked the gameplay here best.
Dark Ages: I liked the story and narrative best. Also the engine is the culmination of decades of work.
I’ve said this as far back as my Stadia and Orion days, Cloud Gaming is not for the core gaming audience.
It’s for people where gaming isn’t a financial priority or financially feasible.
Camp 1 - They owned a pc or console when they were young. Now they have a family with little leisure time but still think about gaming now and then. They can’t justify $500-$3k to get back in.
Camp 2 - Kids. They can’t afford anything but their parents will be more willing to pay a subscription over the buy-in.
The video industry still struggles with streaming sub models. Gaming struggles even harder. The backend costs of a game streaming service are severe compared to CDN costs for digital.
The business model is the real problem to solve not the technical one. Considering the memory crisis is hurting both sides of the transaction I doubt cloud gaming solves any core audience pain in the foreseeable future.
Love this shot. Not a better soul on earth than Ms Donna.
id mom "Miss Donna" surprised the id founders at QuakeCon! ❤️
(@ACarmackArtist, @ThatTomHall , @romero , @ID_AA_Carmack)
ALT a photo op at QuakeCon features the id founders in front of a branded backdrop. The backdrop features id 35 and QuakeCon 30 logos. Adrian Carmack, Tom Hall, Miss Donna Jackson, John Romero, John Carmack are pictured.
I still remember Chris’s first day back in 2010. If he wasn’t working on builds at midnight to make sure people could work the next day, DOOM 2016 may have never shipped.
Now his team makes sure all modern titles stay operational across all platforms.
They laid off the guy managing all legacy titles including this. A miracle it came out.
Darkness awakens once more 😈
Rocket jump into Quake: Dawn of the Machine, a brand-new episode available as a free update to all Quake owners: xbx.lv/3RY8cF5
ALT Promotional image for the Quake: Dawn of the Machine launch trailer. The Quake logo and title appear on the left above a metal banner reading "Dawn of the Machine." On the right, a large stone angel statue with massive outstretched wings stands atop a stepped pedestal against a dramatic orange and gray sky. A dark, red-tinted landscape with curved metal structures stretches across the foreground. A wide banner along the bottom reads "Launch Trailer."
It used to be with each generation the lay person could trivially see the jump in fidelity. Innovation continued but the momentum has slowed. The effort and cost ballooned, pushing lots of people and ideas out of the market.
Most gamers outside the enthusiasts think current fidelity levels are enough. It doesn’t mean new highs aren’t cool to reach. The market you’re selling that into has been outgrown by the cost of the product itself.
Shigeru Miyamoto thinks people don't care about console specs that much anymore, believes Nintendo instead provides "gameplay that only we can create". bit.ly/4yJTbXR
