With AI dominating the news cycle it seems every week I answer a question like: "How do you see indie game dev moving forward with the rise of AI? Is it still worth it to learn programming? Won't Steam be oversaturated with AI games?"
My answer is how AI is really just another tool, that's really it. For the entire history of humanity it's always been humans + tools versus other humans + tools, and now is no different.
If you have no knowledge of programming or game dev, and you ask the AI "make me GTA6" it won't do anything decent, it will give you something completely generic that is worthless.
So AI is only good if you already have knowledge and you know exactly what you're looking for, it's a multiplier on top of your own skills, in that case it can be helpful.
Then in terms of Steam being flooded, no that's not going to happen, or rather not any more than it already is.
People were afraid of the same thing when the Asset Store became popular "oh no Steam is going to be flooded with asset flips" and that hasn't really happened. I mean there are definitely tons of games and with AI there will be even more games, but if you're making games seriously then you are NOT competing with Flappy Bird Clone #42 made by AI. Steam is very good at ignoring all the spam and all the hobby games from the algorithm.
If you are a professional AND you make professional indie games AND you do proper marketing, then your game will rise above all the worthless AI games, regardless of how many there are, and you're really just competing with other properly made games.
- Code Monkey