Dude, stop harassing me. I've made it clear. Stop commenting. It's annoying. I don't want to make an chrome extension to block you from every post/game. Find something better to do. If you have a problem with AI and its environmental impact, harassing me will not change that. Find a way to make it use less water or something. But harassing me is NOT the answer.
Also, if you really want to talk about it instead of trolling, add me on discord. rowingstudios and we can talk.
Alright, fair enough. I can admit I've gone a lil overboard.
However.
I will state that in my first reply to you, I made it a point to say that you very much are capable of creating a game without using a cheap copout. You just need the drive to do so.
I understand that its faster, and that you said that one day you intended to actually get artists once there's a budget.
But I truly believe that you're robbing yourself of the learning and skill improvement of just doing it yourself. You don't *NEED* it. Nobody needs it.
Again, I know its a tool for convenience. But its a tool that genuinely takes away your independence as a learning creator.
I would like to apologize, I'm definitely the asshole here. No doubt about it, did a lil too much trolling.
But let me just leave you with this question:
If you do ever intend to stop relying on it, what is stopping you from doing that sooner?
(Also, for what its worth- I did actually give the game a try after leaving this admittedly douchey "Well well well" comment.)
I appreciate the apology, and I appreciate you actually trying the game. Let me know what you think! Where can I improve it where its not Ai slop like?
If you’re down, I’d honestly rather talk this out on Discord. It’s easier to have a real conversation there than in comment threads. Message me any time.
As for your question: what’s stopping me from dropping AI sooner is mostly time + bandwidth. I’m doing this 100% solo — there’s no team, no art department, no budget to outsource. It’s just me juggling everything it takes to ship (code, builds, UI, marketing, storefront stuff, bug fixing, support, etc.). Learning to draw to the level I’d need on top of that isn’t a small “just do it” step — it’s basically a whole second career path.
The simplest way I can explain it is: if you’re taking a math test and there’s a calculator sitting there, most people use it. Not because they “can’t” do math, but because it lets them spend effort where it matters more. For me, AI is atool that lets me actually finish projects, learn the parts of game dev I’m focused on, and iterate fast.
On the environment part... I’m not pretending AI is impact-free. It uses real electricity and hardware. But it also runs on the same general data-center + internet infrastructure everything online uses, it’s just more compute-heavy in many cases. data centers used about 1.5% of electricity globally. AI was roughly ~0.3% of global electricity in 2024. Storage systems (where all your pictures get saved, every post you've made on every website, every game you've played online cloud save) account for 5% of electricity consumption. So I get the concern, I just don’t think “don’t use it at all” is the only ethical stance.
Long-term, if the games start making real money, I will commission artists and replace pieces over time. Right now I’m trying to survive the “no budget, still need to ship” stage.
If you want to talk about this more, just hit me up on Discord.
EDIT: source: https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from-a