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So not only will we not have any meaningful local hardware in the future, but games themselves will simply be custom-generated to satisfy the player’s exact des

So not only will we not have any meaningful local hardware in the future, but games themselves will simply be custom-generated to satisfy the player’s exact desires? Sounds like it would become pretty dull. Art and experiences are interesting because they are unexpected. Experiencing someone else’s unique and surprising artistic voice is what I love most about good games / art experiences.

Larrikin 6y ago
This seems like a similar comment that would have been made about drum machines. Creative people will always find a way to push the limits of a new technology that makes something difficult suddenly trivial.
- qayxc 6y ago
  > This seems like a similar comment that would have been made about drum machines I doubt that. Simplified and (semi-)automated instruments have been around for a long time since there is legitimate interest in such tools from musicians. The difference here is that people have a tendency to regard machine generated output as more "correct" (whatever that means). The same psychological mechanisms that make Level 3 autonomy in cars and aeroplanes so dangerous can lead to a future where a closed loop automated content generation (e.g. train the next gen GAN on output from the previous gen GAN) kills all creativity and conditions us to prefer the generated aesthetic.
randmeerkat 6y ago
I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s a fair concern. I would say any sufficiently advanced system that you’re describing would detect your desire for something unexpected and create something that fit that for you. Ironically you wouldn’t know that it was tailored specifically to you, because it was so precise in evaluating your tastes.
trevyn 6y ago
No, games and art will be custom-generated to satisfy the designer's exact desires as they do their work, allowing them to more rapidly explore the space of possible expression. Don't worry, it's still dystopian -- games will become exceedingly good and compelling; you won't want to do anything else.
- sgift 6y ago
  Good and compelling games do not even make my top100 when thinking about dystopia. Or is this some kind of "amusing ourselves to death while the world burns around us" comment?
danielbarla 6y ago
One way to look at it is that only humans can have a unique and surprising artistic voice, and leave it at that. However, some games can have _extremely_ interesting emerging content, e.g. as seen in Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld. Since much of the content is procedurally generated, at the moment we are left with text descriptions of things. I can easily see a future where the game worlds are automatically fleshed using these types of techniques, and it would be for the better. Also, on a purely economic scale, automating some aspects of art asset creation for games would be a complete game changer. It would probably up the art capabilities of indie game developers quite a bit, although it's hard to predict these types of things (in the sense that it might benefit AAA developers even more - who knows).

Larrikin 6y ago

This seems like a similar comment that would have been made about drum machines. Creative people will always find a way to push the limits of a new technology that makes something difficult suddenly trivial.

qayxc 6y ago
> This seems like a similar comment that would have been made about drum machines I doubt that. Simplified and (semi-)automated instruments have been around for a long time since there is legitimate interest in such tools from musicians. The difference here is that people have a tendency to regard machine generated output as more "correct" (whatever that means). The same psychological mechanisms that make Level 3 autonomy in cars and aeroplanes so dangerous can lead to a future where a closed loop automated content generation (e.g. train the next gen GAN on output from the previous gen GAN) kills all creativity and conditions us to prefer the generated aesthetic.

randmeerkat 6y ago

I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s a fair concern. I would say any sufficiently advanced system that you’re describing would detect your desire for something unexpected and create something that fit that for you. Ironically you wouldn’t know that it was tailored specifically to you, because it was so precise in evaluating your tastes.

trevyn 6y ago

No, games and art will be custom-generated to satisfy the designer's exact desires as they do their work, allowing them to more rapidly explore the space of possible expression. Don't worry, it's still dystopian -- games will become exceedingly good and compelling; you won't want to do anything else.

sgift 6y ago
Good and compelling games do not even make my top100 when thinking about dystopia. Or is this some kind of "amusing ourselves to death while the world burns around us" comment?

danielbarla 6y ago

One way to look at it is that only humans can have a unique and surprising artistic voice, and leave it at that. However, some games can have _extremely_ interesting emerging content, e.g. as seen in Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld. Since much of the content is procedurally generated, at the moment we are left with text descriptions of things. I can easily see a future where the game worlds are automatically fleshed using these types of techniques, and it would be for the better. Also, on a purely economic scale, automating some aspects of art asset creation for games would be a complete game changer. It would probably up the art capabilities of indie game developers quite a bit, although it's hard to predict these types of things (in the sense that it might benefit AAA developers even more - who knows).