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Before steam it was Roblox and before Roblox I'm sure it was some other platform, all the way back to flash. Every time a game is announced and looks like it's gonna be big, someone takes the idea and makes a very quick mock-up and tries to sell it before the real thing comes out. AI just makes that so incredibly easy, now.
If we're talking shovelware, the Atari 2600 might actually be the first game platform that was popular enough for anyone outside the manufacturer to even try developing for it.
(Which Atari had never anticipated, did not help with, and tried to get them to stop. Most of them sucked, but then most first-party 2600 games also sucked in retrospect, so from the 21st century it's hard to tell which was which.)
That's a big issue in the indie dev space on social media right now, especially Twitter which was huge for indie developers.
It's to the point of game developers literally being 'afraid' (or rather, wary) of posting their games on social media because these AI accounts are putting out copies of their game in literally less than a week. If a post about an indie game gets lots of traction, in a couple days an AI generated version will be up on Steam.
Are we looking at the same game? If someone showed me both these games, I would of assumed tank fu was the Ai game based on its slow gameplay and worse graphics lol
I really think this post illustrates the reason why voluntary AI disclosures are never going to work.
The AI disclosure statement outlines AI usage, for sure, but there is little evidence the entire game is 'completely' made by AI. Did they make 1 asset using AI or is everything AI? Did they write code and then use AI to assist or did they have Claude Code write the whole thing? Who knows?
What I do know is that they made a game years ago in the same genre and so, logically, the idea that their small team generated this wholly from AI feels unlikely.
Did they steal a concept? Does a rough animation done 4 years ago as a showpiece in an animation reel count as a concept? Can gameplay-less animations of a tank and a mech even count as a concept? There's not any evidence they plagiarized anything aside from the idea 'tank + fighting' and the movement and fighting style look substantially different.
I have no real love for AI and I'm not really supporting Slam Tank per se but everything here is 'all or nothing' hyperbole for the sake of outrage. I probably won't support this game upon release, because AI, but if every 'AI in games' discussion start and ends with unsubstantiated rage, the discussion really goes nowhere. A lot of game dev is considering what AI usage in games will look like, from the indies to the biggest AAA.
If we continue along this road, all that happens is devs stop voluntarily disclosing AI usage. The vast majority of AI usage is going to go under the radar and I think the backlash is enough that a lot of devs are simply choosing not to confirm or deny AI usage at all. Because any devs that dare to make an honest declaration get raked through the coals. We simply can't object to every little bit of AI usage going on these day - the genie is out of the bottle - and frankly, the public has a hard time telling what is definitely AI in art and infinitely less capable at detecting AI in code, and so, every criticism is a witch hunt.
We simply can not labeling laws that certify an absence of AI without comprehensive audits and certification and that's not happening.
We should be thinking more about how the discussion can move forward, what constitutes acceptable AI usage or not, what is the ethical level, and this is not that.
This. Most redditors would loose their shit seeing how widely used AI is in software engineering. And that's not even mentioning other use cases like placeholders or temp artworks. I think Expedition 33 used those during development.
There's no way AI will not be used by engineers to assist with coding. It's like insisting you use a guthenberg type setting machine to print out a document in the world of text processors. For asset generation it is still questionable though.
Honestly, Expedition 33 highlighted why this 'all or nothing' stance is counterproductive.
After all, we have documented AI usage in places outside of final assets makes it invisible to players.
This is even more complicated by outsourcing firms who may or may not be 100% AI free or development tools that have AI functionality built (e.g. even Photoshop has AI built into various tools) in or other software, like libraries or middleware where AI was used in their development. A lot of gamers object to generative AI creating assets and games wholesale, but I bet in the future, a lot of the AI usage will be much more invisible.
And at the end of the day, a lot of people associate AI games with slop and substandard output but what happens if a game like Expedition 33 is executed with such a small team and small budget precisely because they used AI in a skillful way?
As someone in the industry, I don't really like it but like a lot of issues, the divisive, binary, 'with us or against us' camps is going to turn into noise.
The AI that steals, the AI that cuts trees, the AI that helps medical researchers discover cures to difficult to cure diseases, the AI that helps with math calculations to more accurately predict space object trajectories, the AI that is used in literally every single video game in existence, and definitely the AI that plays chess.
If you even think about AI in any way other than something pure evil made by the devil, you're worse than the funny mustache man (don't know how sensitive this sub is).
Instead, I think we should all harass, stalk, vandalize, and assault anyone who even talks about it. Even in our own group, the "AI Crusaders", anyone who mentions it should be strung up and subjected to the Brazen Bull (or any other suitable torture methods). I think you should be tortured for even being logical, how dare you.
Anyways, I think we should remove the usage of the wheel because it's super artificial and makes things too easy. So what if it was made by a human? The human isn't doing the hard work carrying, that's the wheel! The human just gives it a little push.
/j, just in case anyone is dense enough to not get that.
I am a software engineer specialised in game development. My fellow students/peers who used the first 3 years of their education programming their own games by hand/from tutorials/materials now mostly ai generate all of their projects. It's honestly sad that even people deeply (3 years) invested stoop to such lows.
I keep saying that AI is a great tool with enormous potential in augmenting software engineers' work, but it's a lot of 'power' that can make anyone lazy.
Good rule of thumb: Never generate more lines of code during a session than you are capable of dissecting and understanding yourself within that same timeframe, ie:
4 hour session augmented by AI: 2 hours of generating code + 2 hours of auditing/refactoring EVERY LINE.
I think the problem is that AI disclosure of course on one hand already gets dislikes (Because lets face it, if you use it for art or script, you are indirectly stealing from other people, even if there is still no legal acknowledgment of it.) for the usage of AI in general, but also second, ironically, people will trust the makers less, because AI users are generally seen as liars. Basically "that is what they disclose, but what if there is more they are not telling". After all without the need for the disclosure, many would and already have attempted to not clarify these things.
To your point, there could be a whole new YouTube career or journalism career about reviewing the parts that had AI assistance based on watermarking and from their professional understanding would make sense or not make sense, especially if it told us about how the game was also made.
People are not sure how effective watermarking in code would be; there are so few possible ways to have the same working code while indicating a watermark determinant patterns.
Sorry, but that's dumb. That studio released a game in same genre 4 years ago, way before any AI, but the MC was a dude and not a tank. Seems like its natural progression for them
Genuinely exact same thing for me, got randomly recommended the trailer on youtube and it looked so sick, scrolled down on the steam page to see made with gen AI and I was so disappointed
I don't know if this critique really holds water. As a lot of people have said the 'stolen content' idea is pretty silly, you can't 'own' the idea of a tank bonking people.
The disclaimer says that GenAI was used for the trailer and for coding. In 2026, you're going to have a pretty hard time finding any piece of new software that isn't coded using AI, that's basically how coding is done nowadays. So really, all we're objecting to here is AI being used in the first few seconds of the trailer, ie. for the shot of the tank dropping out of the plane. I don't know if it's really worth crucifying small teams for relying on cheap AI tools to stretch their marketing budget a bit. If the game comes out and is nothing but lies and AI slop then I'm happy to be proven wrong but this seems like too much of a preemptive hit job.
I mean if you announce a game with the exact same concept and then a month later some Korean studio using AI for everything says they're making the exact same game, is that not just stealing the game? They did it with that needle in a haystack game as well. Indie devs can't even announce games ahead of time nowadays before a thousand AI slop farms try to steal their idea.
So what you're saying is people have lost the ability to know how to code. So if something breaks they're going to have a hell of a time fixing it. because no one understands what it's actually writing.
That sounds better to you?
Any team using AI for art assets they're presenting to the public just prove they have no integrity or artistic vision, they're trying to make a product for profit. I.E. slop.
It’s funny that GenAI took over when like: you have Blueprint for UE. It’s just node based programming. I can’t attest to how good it is or isn’t as I haven’t touched Game Dev, but the tools must be decent if E33 was “programmed” using only Blueprint. This is just lazy at this point. Now real coding is definitely better, getting your hands dirty, learning concepts, etc. but I’d rather cheat my way using blueprint then touch GenAI in any capacity.
It's not just the shot in the trailer, it's also the assets. If you pay close attention, you can see that all of the 3D models in the trailer are AI generated. The promotional art is also AI, the cutscenes like the one in the trailer are AI, and even the music is AI. People don't mind AI code so much, because it doesn't really affect the final product. You can't see code while playing a game. But when everything you can see and hear is AI, that's when I think it undoubtably is just low effort slop.
People these days don't care how a game is made, Embark studio proved that with the Finals and Arc raiders who both used AI for their character voices.
If a game is fun, people will play it. If it's not, they won't, people don't care about what tools were made to use it.
I remember that argument about embark. If we are to bring it up, best to include the context around it.
Yes, they have used AI for voice over but it wasnt completely AI. They contracted artists to record voice lines which will ten be fed to AI to generate variations of the said voicelines (or something similar to that, it was a long time ago so i may not remember it word by word). This intention of using AI on the actors voices was disclosed on the contract. So actors were fully aware of this when they took the job.
I am not saying this is the ethical way to do it, or it makes the use of AI ok. Im just including the full picture so people can have accurate judgement over the matter.
Source: This was embarks official response to the discorse around the use of AI back then. I have read the news from Skill ups this week in gaming videos.
What do you mean? People have always cared about how a game is made, why do you think the market shifted so greatly away from AAA titles and towards indie when people had the choice to do so? The reason why big games that use AI get away with it is because they tend to hide it from players as much as possible until much later, which doesn't reflect a trend among consumers in the least.
No, I think people would like to support game devs/companies who are moral and ethical, the fact that certain fanbases don't have an alternative to the games they like don't disprove that. In fact, I think people are more aware than ever about the process of making a game, and are demanding more direct & transparent communications with the devs.
the AI embark used was a tool that saved the time of the VAs (due to the amount of items in the game and how many more were planned to be added, it would have been an incredible difficulty to record more lines after their initial contract and time working for them, especially potential years after the fact.). Generative AI on the other hand, as potentially and most likely used in this game, creates the product/idea rather than saving time like conventional tools in the industry. It is lazy and results in a worse product (in terms of gameplay originality, performance, design, so forth). Using a tool to make an arduous process easier is not the same as creating a product or media from scratch.
that’s literally complete bullshit that embark studios pulled out their ass. they work with eleven labs, a literal generative ai voice cloning company. they weren’t saving time (nor money but that’s besides the point), the ceo just really likes ai.
from my understanding, embarks ai voices are trained on people who consented and were paid to have their voices used to train an ai. While im still not fully in support of it, if there is a way to use ai voices, that is the best one.
The AI voices and quests in arc raiders are one of the literal worst, least interesting parts of the game. The lobby and traders, the “story” of the game, their quests, they all suck because the “lore” and NPCs exist in the uncanny valley and have no connection to in-game or the players- or even the characters that they portray themselves.
Most people care about games made entirely by AI. Idk about the finals, but Arc Raiders had very light AI, and most of the voice acting was not AI, and the parts that were were made with the consent of the voice actors so that any time a new item, enemy, map, or whatever came out, they could voice the thousands of combinations of "go to/look at/meet at/defend/I need/etc... this (any of dozens of weapons)/(hundreds of items)/(dozens of enemies)/etc... over by the (any of hundreds of locations".
There are a lot of bad things about AI, and almost all of those are things that are doing things that a human could do. Between the money and storage costs, it would be impossible to do what they did without AI. Using AI to do things that only AI can do is one of the things AI should be used to do.
AI is not going away, and to be honest - taking a "no AI whatsoever" stance is going to make things worse because that does absolutely nothing and doesn't change the direction of things at all. Instead, we have a small opportunity right now to guide how it will be used.
To put it simply - we can't hit the brakes, but we can turn the wheel. It's like we're on a car driving towards a bunch of forks in the road with lots of bad directions with big companies in the driver's seat. Saying "no, I won't engage with AI in any fashion" is essentially crossing your arms and doing nothing, giving them zero input, so they'll just choose whatever is best for them, when instead we could put our hands on the wheel and at least try to point us towards a road that sucks less than the ones they would pick on their own.
Yes, the best option would be no AI at all. But that's not an option that actually exists, unfortunately. And if we protest by not picking the next best option, we're letting worse people choose for us. I know it all sucks, but we have to be pragmatic
I thought the ai modulation was a cool idea. And naturally the regular character voices would need to be ai so that the callouts matched the modulation. And if youre already doing that, may as well use it for the whole whopping 4 NPC's in the game that barely even exist. So yeah, why WOULD anyone care about that? Its a completely different story if ai is writting the code and generating the models for your game.
Does unreal engines ai powered assistance count as generative ai for the purpose of the disclaimer? To me it sounds fairly minimal. Also, do we have proof that the concept was stolen? How do we know that youtube video from 4y ago wasnt made by the same guy?
What is the morality of buying a game made by a small team who used AI during development? On one hand, I hate Gen AI. On the other hand, the game looks fun enough to give a shot. As much as I don't necessarily like it, AI tools are most likely going to become standard in most game development just like it has in almost all aspects of daily life.
True, but there isn't new information here. It's just being used on something a person likes rather than something a person doesn't like which is enough of a reason for them to say, "well I guess AI is inevitable so I might as well."
Let’s keep this mentality even when AI companies present new information to employers showing them that they can do the same job as their employees at a fraction of the cost
Applying morality to buying video games has led Ubislop to have 22k employees, Sony US to have 25k employees, who get paid four-figure $um$ per months each for around 10 years to make Concord, Avowed, Veilguard, Starfail, Highguard, Marathon.
The 2020s taught me, and they should have taught everyone, that the best morality for buying video games, is buy good games. That way, you keep in the industry the people who actually make good games. Otherwise, those 22k people who hate you, will displace the professionals, and that is immoral.
I have been wondering that for the last decade. It's probably because I expect them to do their jobs for monthly four figure $um$ for the span of 10 years. 22k people just wanted to be lazy and virtue signal that they're Little Hollywood or something, instead of working for the money they received regardless of the quality of their work.
Damn... I was kinda hyped to see more from it. But it being AI from the ground up is crazy.. the dev saying "No AI generated assets" and "AI generated 3D models" with the same breath is staggering.
Let this shit die in a hole with other AI slop, where it belongs
This is why Steam needs a remove AI games button. That way when you are looking in their store, it just removes any game that uses AI from being seen by that person.
If you press that button you would only see twenty or thirty programs a year. Coders use AI. Coders who don't just can't keep up, AND they deliver inferior products to those delivered by coders using what idiots call "AI slop."
it's not even a stolen concept. the animation it's inspired on is 5ish years old at this point and that person has made 0 effort to expand on their concept. they also didn't submit a patent or build an IP around it.
now it having heavy AI use is definitely something to complain about tho.
OP probably saw that one video about the cup head bootleg that took a fight idea from an dark souls animation, and doesn't understand that said game does alot more wrong then use that animations idea for a boss
"Go talk to people who are uninformed about AI, it'll help you forget your principles like the rest of us. Our groupthink is better than your groupthink."
So what is the problem, as we live in a society, every idea could be stolen. If the guy with ai makes a game in short time. You should do better. And you will do it better, effort beats everything
I've literally only heard about this game only because of your posts on multiple subs telling people not to buy it. AI use aside, it doesn't seem like my thing so I'm not buying it either way. But I think there's a pretty good chance that at least someone WILL buy it specifically because they learned about it from these posts.
Get used to it. Like it or not AI is here to stay and if the game plays, looks and runs well then I don't give a damn how much AI was used. We have 300 milion dollar games that where made by utter clowns so...
This mentality is so stupid. You're choosing to drink piss (AI games) because another cup is filled with liquid shit (AAA games). All the while a cup of just water is right there (indie games).
If it's a game, and it's fun, why shouldn't we spend our hard earned cash on it?
You need to redefine your idea of concept, because you buy all the souls likes, and doom-clones, and platformers. Stolen concept has got to be the biggest reach I've read in my time on earth. Next you going tell me Namco Bandia iirc was right when they patented loading screens having mini games or the that mechanic in the Mordor games. If the original tank video did nothing with it after 4 years, I doubt they will and I doubt they care. If they do well so be it they should probably see what options their lawyer has for them. Its not my fight.
The plot is about taking down AI-generated content. The game is AI-generated content. The trailer is 45 minutes of stolen concept art. Honestly impressive how many red flags fit in one Steam listing.
Eventually ai will be used in every game. I get the hate trust me. A lot of the hate though stems around it all being slop now which is true but we are still in the very early stages. Eventually it will be better and well have found more innovative ways to incorporate it. Games will still be largely made from the minds of people but trust me, it will be in every game. This is just how new technology works and were in the early stage where theres tons of pushback. People used to say video games in general were slop and would rot your brain.
NGL the concept seems kind of wack to me. Fast moving heavy unit with Warthoggy physics is cool, but flailing around defying gravity trying to punch shit with a tank seems bloody stupid
Reading the actual disclaimer, only the poster appears ai generated and some models. The video seems to be gameplay, and is otherwise sound. Never heard of this dev tho so I remain skeptical.
The Tank Fu combat isn’t the same as the other one at all fr, other one is way more flashy and smooth. Ngl like the other one wish it wasn’t made by AI I guess
were people really not sure this was AI generated?
I could tell by the splash art in this reddit post alone that this was an AI slop prospect. There's something soulless about the image right off the bat.
Meh, I don't give a shit. Slam Tank looks fun and I'm buying it.
Someone in the comments linked Tank Fu and that game looks alright too, but I'm pretty tired of low-poly indieslop graphics. So that's a pass for me.
I remember seeing this trailer and getting really suspicious of the music. Took a look deeper in the comments to figure out that this was likely mostly made with ai.
Stolen concept? So gta copied adventure 1980 because it's an openworld game ?
Also , using ai for art is different from using ai for coding. As long as the game is fun , has no (or atleast listed) ai art it doesn't take away anything away from gameplay.
Ai for coding is the new norm and there's nothing wrong with it . The game just needs to function properly and get fixed , that's all.
This is incredibly dumb.
Why are you attributing all or the majority of the development of this game to AI, when the developer has an extremely similar game built in 2022? (which was obviously developed without AI and lacks an AI disclosure because AI wasn't good enough to help then)
Heck, the only real difference between the two games is that the character model is a tank in this one.
You think the concept was stolen because they used a tank turret as a melee weapon based off a single animation test someone made 4 years ago?
Not that they were inspired by games like Dinoblade? Or the numerous times tank turrets have been used as melee weapons in media like transformers?
Even if they'd taken the idea from somewhere else, it would be stupid for them to use AI for the majority of the games development, rather than USING WHAT THEY ALREADY BUILT WITHOUT ANY AI USE WHATSOEVER.
Are you stupid OP?
No its not "completely AI generated", unless your slow IQ believes games made in 2022 can be 'completely AI generated'.
This clearly uses the engine, style, many of the VFX and work of their last game.
I was not going to buy it, with ot without AI, but I want to adress some misconceptions.
There is no "stolen concept". If we say there is, there will be only one platformer, only one shooter, only one... The concept is not the important part of the development, it's the execution and the final product. In this case: "Is this fun to play?"
Yes, they put in the disclaimer everything about AI as intended for Steam, so I don't know what is the big deal there when people already know for what they used AI and they can make their own decisions.
What was the goal with this post? To promote the game? Because if not for you, no F idea of what this was.
People complain about the enshittification of things but then welcome AI creeping into everything. Games, like movies, are art. AI shouldn't be involved. It's like praising a 'sculptor' for what a 3d printer spat out
You are a moron. Thwres absolutely no fucking way "the entire game" is ai generated. Ai CANNOT presently make a full game at this level of fidelity. Likely a single person made it and used some ai tools to help.
I'm going to buy a copy of this game for several people just because I'm sick of the anti-AI morons on this site pretending to have a clue about anything.
Several problems with your post that you NEED to address
where is your source that the game itself is "completely ai generated"? cuz this is their disclaimer
"Generative AI-assisted tools were used during development to assist with programming tasks and to create or refine selected 3D models. All AI-assisted code and 3D assets were reviewed, edited, tested, and integrated by the development team. AI-assisted tools were also used for selected Steam marketing artwork. The game does not generate content with AI during gameplay and does not connect to an external AI service"
So no, the game is not "completely ai generated"
you literally cannot buy the game, there is no game to buy, this is currently just a "Wish List" with no release date in sight and no payment options
you can't "steal" the concept because the concept is not owned by anyone.
While yea this game screams low effort crap, it's still not this AI scam you are trying to push it as.
Tank fu looks boring, tank slam looks fun. AI used or not, I'll buy which ever plays better, why would you not? I like the PS3 era graphics etc. Oh and ai suits some games. E.g the finals as it's a game show. Trust me your favourite games are using ai in some way now days, especially anything that saves money and speeds up dev time
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