From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


Does Epic love AI? Let us count the ways!

a) While other storefronts offer a "uses AI" to inform
purchasers how the product was created, Epic steadfastly
refuses to add any such feature
b) Numerous expansions for its pride-and-joy product,
Fortnite, are developed using generative AI
c) Epic offers "AI development tools for its Unreal
Engine
d) It proudly announces that Epic Game Store, its
storefront/client, will be 'vibe coded' using AI
for all future releases (and ships a half-baked
example for Linux that is buggy as hell... but it's
made with AI so that makes it okay, I guess?)
e) It announces that it is forcing all its developers
-programmers and artists- to only create new products
with AI.
f) And now, it starts a MegaJam challenging developers to
build a game in four days using AI.

The fact that gamers have been very vocal against all these things
apparently does not matter to Epic and Tim Sweeney, it's CEO. There's
an increasingly negative opinion by gamers (and a lot of people in
general) against AI; this move by Epic seems particularly tone-deaf.

AI tools aren't, in and of themselves, terrible but so far their use
has not been to gamer's benefit; AI slop is crowding out good games on
Steam, even as developers lose their jobs to the technology. All this
while gaming hardware prices soar because the AI bros are hoarding the
tech, and it uses incredible amounts of electricity and water. There's
reasons that gamers have such a negative view of the technology, and
most publishers have backed away from advertising their use of the
stuff. But Epic is embracing the negative vibes for some reason.

There is speculation that Epic is intending to go public and their
advancing of AI is an attempt to capture the excitement of
tech-investors. Or maybe its Epic's investors (Tencent owns a 40%
stake, Disney owns about 10% of the company) pushing them in this
direction. Heck, maybe Sweeney is a major investor in nvidia or
Anthropic. Who knows? But these decisions don't seem to be made with
the intent of creating better games, or satisfying their customers, or
helping their developers (over 1000 of whom lost their jobs at Epic
this year alone).








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