u/Own-Attorney7449

I had never made a game before today. Like any small indie studio, it’s just the two of us doing everything. We were severely short on time (and money) for development, game design, UI, and above all branding! So, like nearly 70% of games on Steam, we decided to generate our visuals using AI

Even though I’m a former graphic designer, I couldn't afford to spend two weeks creating a logo, characters, typography, and so on

So, we used ChatGPT. We weren't proud of it, but... after all, everyone else is doing it, and it seems to pass muster, right? However, when we launched our Steam page, we realized that using AI for the capsule art made it look like a "lazy game" even though we’d pulled so many all-nighters working on it that I’ve lost count

That wasn't the image we wanted to project. After talking to players and other devs on Discord and elsewhere, the verdict came in: "Why use AI for your visuals when your in-game art is already so beautiful?" That’s when we decided to replace the AI-generated characters with our restaurant as the background

We kept the logo. But then we realized it was silly to have to include an AI disclaimer just for a logo when everything else was hand-crafted...

That was it I put my graphic designer hat back on. I decided to redo everything; never mind the time and energy I’d already lost. Besides, it’s my game my very first one, my baby. I had to do my absolute best to make it perfect (or at least as perfect as I could make it)

We decided to redo the logo without changing it too drastically, since we’d already done quite a bit of promotion using that version (press releases, videos, etc.). And now, I can proudly say: sure, I drew some inspiration from AI visuals, but I recreated everything by hand. I listened to the feedback, and I think the result is much better for my game

So, don’t make the same mistake. Take your time; even if your visuals aren’t perfect, something personal is better than the AI-generated look 70% of people are using