this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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346
A Steam dev is deleting his own game after girlfriend made him realize AI is bad (www.polygon.com)
submitted 1 day ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/games@lemmy.world
57 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

AI in video games is a caustic enough subject that Valve requires developer disclosure if a title utilizes the generative technology. This way, people who have qualms about AI or its impact can opt out of purchasing anything that uses the genAI. One developer, however, is saving everyone from the moral quandary in the first place by just deleting their game altogether.

Hardest is a free-to-play roguelike on Steam that was released in the summer of 2025 with the tagline, "stop time, summon tsunamis, shoot with bubble guns, feed cards to mimic, collect rare negative cards!" Except for a user who says the game helped him bond with his son, Hardest mostly got a negative reception. "I assume the whole thing is AI slop," one reviewer wrote.

You'd think flopping like this would be the end of the story, but half a year later, Rakuel, the developer, has undergone a revelation. On Jan. 10, the indie creator posted an update to Hardest announcing that he would pull the game from the platform by the end of the month.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 47 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Rakuel's post on steam is very interesting

I made this game during the summer in couple months and thought to use AI because in university there is so much brainwashing on students and all the tools are given for free, so I could generate unlimited images for free and so.

Emphasis mine. Universities playing a role in this annoys me a lot.

Some AI companies can use this game just existing as a reason the get more investment for their AI companies, that benefit no one, but rather suck resources from the economy from hard working people.

I think this part alone is incredibly important and the real eye-opener for him.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

The modern private or otherwise profiting university is first and foremost employee farms, with many trying to be ceo farms and, well you can see what universities have churned out in that regard

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 14 hours ago

Good on him, but I wonder if he would be doing this had the game been a success

[–] Stern@lemmy.world 44 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

What good sex does to a guy

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 6 points 13 hours ago

I wanted to make this joke but didn't want to downplay the breakthrough they had. But man I wonder what her argument was... How did she manage to convince him?

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Sounds like mental illness to me.

[–] 7101334@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

What? Which part? Summoning tsunamis? It's not that fun I'm afraid.

[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 9 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

first time seeing a indie dev go ahead and Remove the whole game because the whole game uses AI.
Until now i only have seen indie devs just use AI to show that its just a tool rather then replacing artists/people, to fit the narrative(the narrative itself is not AI generated) and keep it on the game's backgrounds(and the devs opted to use adobe firefly cause it claims to be "ethical" there were even mods created to remove the AI apparently).

[–] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 points 16 hours ago

Wait, a steam game with vertical aspect ratio??

[–] Sharkticon@lemmy.zip 53 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good for him doing the right thing. Keeping slop out of the world is one of the most moral things a person can do.

[–] some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago

That’s why I’m not having kids.

[–] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 14 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Could've just re-coded the AI-bits

[–] na_th_an@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

He says it's all coded by him, it's just the assets that are AI.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Controversial opinion'

This is kind of a valid take or use I suppose.

And it's something I struggle with as well.

I know how to program and I can make games with really shitty assets that no one would want to play because it looks like crap. I've tried many times and I don't seem to have the artistic skill set to make it happen. I've tried dozens of times to find and pay people on sites like fiverr, with extremely disappointing results.

And as a hobby I can't just afford to pay thousands of dollars to have someone make passable art either.

And someone like this as a student obviously doesn't have the money to pay someone to build all their assets.

So what do??? It seems reasonable to have a desire to finish your passion project in some manner

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago

He probably doesn't know how.

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Seems like it's all AI-bits

[–] Soulphite@reddthat.com 64 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Why doesn't he just... I dunno, develop the AI bits? Is he just going to give up?

[–] becausechemistry@piefed.social 92 points 1 day ago (6 children)

The announcement suggests the developer wrote all the code, but used the slop robot to generate assets. Sounds like the issue is that making art assets actually takes skill, and is something most programmer types underestimate.

[–] clif@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

I'd agree with this. I'm a dev, I can make things work, I can't do art/graphics/assets/etc for shit. Give me 5 or 6 hours and I might be able to get you one image that is semi passable if the intended artistic style is "3 year old with crayons"

[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 8 points 16 hours ago

Also, it still kinda feeds the AI narrative if he recodes the AI part.

"See? He used AI to make it faster and get some money then he went back and touched it up, really helpful tool"

[–] Soulphite@reddthat.com 6 points 19 hours ago

This challenge never stopped Chris Sawyer and he went on to develop the most influential video game for his time.

[–] dil@piefed.zip 6 points 21 hours ago

You could simplify art hella if you dont go detailed, procedural (nonai) is fun

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm curious if a dev that carefully manages placeholders could at least garner interest from artists this way. Clair Obscur's debacle with their Indie Award demonstrates how horrible this can turn out if they miss even one asset; but sadly, I empathize coming from a position where I devoted my studies into learning coding and writing techniques, not artistry.

My space game was cubes and cylinders colliding.

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[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Incidentally, if people had skill, they wouldn't use Ai?

[–] becausechemistry@piefed.social 34 points 1 day ago

Again, reading the announcement, it sounds like the advice the developer received in school was to use it. He’s realized now that it was a bad call.

[–] False@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

It sounds like the bigger issue was that the game was bad.

[–] LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe 4 points 22 hours ago

He says he might release a new version with original assets in the future

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 28 points 1 day ago

"Ethically, [the] only logical reason is to delete the game from Steam. The girl I've been dating for a month made me realize this."

Make like 38 Special and hold on loosely brother. Keep it up.

[–] tomalley8342@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Based as hell

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[–] StitchInTime@piefed.social 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Kind of an extreme viewpoint in my opinion. I personally have no issue with an indy or first time dev using AI assistance for a passion project, my issue is when large studios are replacing talented folks with soulless slop.

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ethical concerns aside there is a difference between using AI to not have to hire artists/developers and using AI because someone can't realize their vision because they do not have all the prerequisite skills.

On one hand, you have companies using AI when they can absolutely hire a human to do something; on the other, there is someone who couldn't have published anything without the assistance of such a tool.

People have different passions, and not everyone can be good at art, programming, etc to create something amazing. The problem is when someone uses a tool as a clutch, or uses it to replace human expression of intention. Then it truly becomes a soulless worthless piece of crap.

The best example is people in the scanlation scene that translate manga. It's fine to use AI to remove the original text while NOBODY is fine with an AI translation. Why? Because redrawing line art is an activity that doesn't require human expression (it's more about preserving the original expression of the artist, not changing anything); while localization of text requires a human to interpret and express intent in a different cultural setting.

[–] orochi02@feddit.org 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I think personal translation is fine tho. Heck partly even commercial translation if you would have just went with MTL or google translate in the First Place. But as you said if you really wish to translate intent too then hiring a decent translator is key especially when the translation carries some intent or idiom etc. That is not easy to translate to another Language.

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 18 hours ago

There's a really big issue in the scanlation scene of people putting up paywalls for MTL scans that don't even translate sfx, and hobbyists that take a great deal of care in getting every bit of cultural nuance right for free.

You're never gonna beat the MTLers, people just read whatever comes out first without care for quality. Why even bother putting up with this BS anyways?

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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 18 points 1 day ago

Its funny reading the positive reviews and seeing thay they couldn't even bother spending more than 20mins playing.

Props for it being open source but it seems like a shit game. Needs more gameplay polish I doubt AI was the problem here.

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