Yesterday, Google announced Project Genie, a new generative AI tool that can apparently create entire games from just prompts. It leverages the Genie 3 and Gemini models to generate a 60-second interactive world rather than a fully playable one. Despite this, many investors were scared out of their wits, imagining this as the future of game development, resulting in a massive stock sell-off that has sent the share prices of various video game companies plummeting.
The firms affected by this include Rockstar owner Take-Two Interactive, developer/distributors like CD Projekt Red and Nintendo, along with even Roblox — that one actually makes sense. Most of the games you find on the platform, including the infamous “Steal a Brainrot,” are not too far from AI slop, so it’s poetic that the product of a neural network is what hurt its stock.
Unity’s share price fell the most at 20%, since it’s a popular game engine. Generally speaking, that’s how most games operate: they use a software framework, such as Unity or Unreal Engine, which provides basic functionality like physics, rendering, input, and sound. Studios then build their vision on top of these, and some developers even have their own custom in-house solutions, such as Rockstar’s RAGE or Guerrilla’s Decima.
If this is widely adopted, I have enough emulators and classic PC games to never buy another game in my life and still be entertained the whole time. Good luck, corpo dipshits.
This. My back log of physical DS and 3ds games is extensive and grows a little every time I remember I have the eBay app on my phone. Sorry wallet.
3ds and DS cartridges both have a limited lifespan and are likely to experience save failure as the years pile on - have you considered hacking your 3ds and getting a flashcart for DS games?
(You also won’t be giving money to scalpers on ebay)
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Selling games from 10-20 years ago isn’t scalping.
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I have 15 Nintendo handhelds on my last count. 2 of the 3ds are modded.
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I have a pretty sizable collection and I’ve not had a game die on me yet, aside from save batteries that I’m capable of changing. I know the games can eventually die, I know it’s on the horizon, but they all still work for now, and I think even after they die I’ll enjoy the memories that the physical media provided me.
- Retro games can totally on the market for completely unreasonable prices, look at any of the NDS pokemon games for a quick point of reference - especially insulting compared to the ease of using a flashcart.
- Damn, you’re one of those hardcore collectors. I’m just the kind of person that bought a 3ds for the unique hardware layout and emulate the rest of Nintendo’s handhelds on my Steam Deck, but different strokes I guess.
- The 3DS carts I believe are the most prone to failure - most of what I read comes from the Animal Crossing and Pokemon communities (probably due to their dedicated fanbases), so that’d be the primary concern. Considering you can regularly rip your carts using a modded 3DS, staying ahead of it would probably be wise (I’m not hatin’ on the collection, but even diehard physical media collectors should rip their copies for safety).
Yeah man, the prices are unfortunate, but supply and demand is definitely a thing. Items are only worth what people are willing to pay, and I’m fortunate to be able to justify some of my expendable income on growing my collection here and there.
If you really want your head to hurt, look up some of those really popular games sealed and WATA/PSA graded. Old graded consoles still sealed can sell for 6 digits.
I definitely have several of my favorites ripped for a rainy day. It’s definitely not a hobby for everyone. I have more modern emulation machines that can easily run all of my backups, but there’s really no replacement for the real games on real hardware. Just like some people are audiophile vinyl collectors who thumb their nose at Spotify and a pair of ear buds.
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Literally millions (billions?) of amazing games made before 2018 are waiting to be played! I wonder if future gamers will shun the 2020 era of gaming like the disco era
You just described why it won’t be widely adopted.
I also have probably emulators for approx. 90 consoles / systems and have full set of games for most… Even if no game is produced anymore, we can buy current gen PC and console games, including Switch and Steam. In addition to emulation of older systems. And then there is the modding scene… with never ending content for out beloved games, even remasters from fans.
If the gaming industry goes wild, then I have no fear of missing out. And there are enough games (even to buy) that will serve me for the rest of my life.
I just bought Stardew Valley. Should I feel bad now?
No, you should be playing Stardew Valley though!
Roughly an average 10% drop in major gaming stocks, because a plagiarism machine can produce one minute of 720p, 24fps ‘gameplay’ at an absolutely astounding compute cost.
These people are all fucking idiots.
Therr is no universe where this even makes sense under a ‘a games are streamed’ paradigm.
This is like 100x to 100,000x the cost in hardware and energy, to produce a minute.
Do these fucking idiots think a game can just be wholly reinstantiated every single minute?
It actually would have made more sense to fine tune an LLM to interface with an API layer for Unity or something, to just… you know, produce an actual game?
Call that the uh, the processed training data/output condensed into a distilled an efficient piece of software, the ‘local’ model, if these clowns understand nothing but jargon.
I truly cannot comprehend the mind numbing level of stupidity on display here.
If that much investor money can be swayed by this utterly pitiful demonstration, then all these game stocks deserve to go to near 0, because clearly the people in charge (the investors) understand literally nothing about video games.
This is utterly asinine.
What happens if/when all of the plagiarised games start suing Google for IP infringement?
How is everyone involved at every step of this so utterly mentally impaired?
How is everyone involved at every step of this so utterly mentally impaired
Most of the shareholder oligarchs who own our economy are lead poisoned boomers and this is all just their way of competing with each other for the top spots on the forbes richest people list.
… Yeah… yeah.
Yeah that pretty much is the actual answer.
the more mentally impaired you are the more susceptible you are to chasing gains
…j-just… just gimme s-s-some gains bro, I need more GAINS!
I NEEED LINE GO UP!
I NEED IT BAD, MAN!
… you g-got any gains bro? P-please!
The expert systems that the console manufacturers supply to developers can already do this sort of thing.
… I didn’t downvote you, but uh, no, I really don’t think they can.
I think you are confusing an semi-automable asset pipeline that adheres to various kinds of standards for… a whole lot more than that.
I’d really like to see any evidence that what you seem to be describing actually exists.
Because if it does, and is or has been in widespread use for any amount of time prior to now… well very broadly, it would seem to be hurting more than helping things.
It’s Google, so it will last two years MAX.
If you ever feel like you’re stupid, ignorant, absolutely microbe-brained, and that no one on this planet could possibly be more braincell starved than you:
remember that at least you don’t invest in the stock market for a livingSo what i am hearing is buy in the dip?
no these are a bunch of dips making it happen
If you like holding an empty bag, this is a great strategy.
Ever hear of carrying capital losses forward to offset capital gains?
… That kinda sorta works for companies, not so much for people looking to make some kind of probably leveraged bet.
It works for individuals too. When I sold some shares a couple parcels were at a loss so I was able to offset the gains on other shares.
You do have a limit on how long you can carry the losses forward and they only offset capital gains not regular income tax.
I mean it sounds like we are in agreement then, that this works better for companies than it does for individual/retail investors.
So people are idiots. Got it.
I dunno man working on a video game as a side hobby they’re the worst things I’d use for gen ai. There’s too many things from pathing to physics and collision that require human input to make work.
Anytime I’ve tried it’s given some absolute shit results.
People spend 2 hours making an llm spit out some shit thats mediocre instead of spending that time learning. And they consider it a win.
I do admit all this shit has made me want give up on music or ever learning programming becauze every other person will just prompt it and be better than me in the short term. sigh. depressing times.
As a full time software engineer you’ll get a lot more out of learning how things work, even in the short term, if you properly learn the craft.
Otherwise when something deals you won’t have the tools to debug it. When the work LLMs are great but if things go haywire you wanna be able to stop and triage yourself.
Yeah for sure. It feels like an uphill battle more than its ever been though.
I feel that.
Even in my current job they’re pushing us to use chatbots and LLMs even when it doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot of people hoping for the mythical productivity boosts that snake oil salesmen are shoveling. Going to the point where they see a future where “you check in prompts to source control because LLMs will be so good at translating those”. Which is batshit but you gotta let c level people learn this the hard way and fire everyone else for their mistakes.
Classic GenAI marketing BS :
- show a superficial demo (literally it’s JUST the surface of the things you claim you can “generate”)
- imply that we are on the “brink” of radical change so we “just” have to wait then the “rest” will be generated
- move on to the next grandiose claim to make sure nobody goes beyond the surface
It’s so obvious it’s painful. Sure it’s not random, sure there is “progress” but it’s NEVER tackling the hard problem. What makes a game fun or exciting isn’t the generated world, only a non gamer would claim that.
Investors never played a real video game. They dont undestand the difference between video (ai generated) and a video game.
- Step 1 : buy some shares that fell down
- Step 2 : Wait for the IA fuckery to collapse
- Step 3 :
- Step 4 : profit
Why does Google keep trying to make AI, when they’re soooo bad at it, and pretty much everything else they do?
All the executives invested heavily in AI because they’re easily wowed by things that look impressive but have no substance so they thought it was the next Big Thing. They want it to pay off so they can cash out and get rich(er).
The pigs oink and squeal for more slop, and the market trembles.
And Gabe keeps laughing
Good. Time to buy.
is it? stock prices are still quite high
Don’t follow me for advice, I know nothing about this stuff other than “line is down - buy, line is high - sell”
This stock sell off is not accidental or even just from fear. They are driving it themselves. I have zero doubt in my mind that they are selling off their own investments in those companies that they made through intermediaries to drive it down more. Short selling the stock to help.
These people do not allow the stock market to react to things, they control it whole cloth.
We play games because they’re stories and challenges put forth by other humans that look interesting.
Even if a slop machine put together a cohesive game involving metaphor and emotions, it’s still not human and it still won’t be played and enjoyed. It would ring hollow, just like AI sound files that try to approximate human music.
