u/coolchungus2

Generative AI is a cute new tool or whatever. It's a neat way to get a placeholder graphic that'll turn half of your audience away from your game, an awesome way to write your code that won't function and that you can't debug.

You don't need it.

Placeholders have existed for long before Generative AI has existed (programmer art), and people who are "bad at art" have solo developed games with bad art that've stayed relevant. People aren't going to care about your "bad art" if you've put clear time and effort into it. I'd argue good art direction matters more than the actual quality of the art (see Lobotomy Corporation, a passion project made in 2018 by four college students, being so well known for exclusively it's art direction that it managed to spawn 2 high budget sequels and a long webcomic in spite of how the game itself does not function without mods).

Contrary to popular belief, gamers are going to notice and be turned away by "good looking" AI art. Gamers will not notice "bad art" given there's effort put in and good art direction. You couldn't tell me that Undertale has bad art, in spite of the mixels and general flaws present throughout, and Toby Fox himself saying that the art is bad, because Undertale's art direction is so good. Undertale is even one of my primary inspirations for learning art.

Good marketing also matters a ton. Muck was a massive success purely off of the back of how well Danidev marketed it, and then he repeated that success again with Megabonk under the name Vedinad. People loved and became interested in these games because they got to see into the human process behind making them and all the effort that went into them. I'd argue marketing matters above all else, but marketing alone can't save a project that looks uninteresting.

Non-AI code is also massively important in keeping your game functioning. A lot of people see code as this busy labor that should be automated (I personally disagree, but I understand why people see it as such). But code isn't something AI will ever be able to do well. Coding is such a complex process, one that gradually compounds on itself as a game gets larger, that there's no real way to make "perfect" code. There will always be flaws and bugs in the code to work on. There will always be optimization to be done. Code is something that can only really be untangled by a real human mind. And your real human mind is going to dull overtime if you rely on AI to do coding for you. it's an already well documented phenomenon, where coders will forget what they've learned if they become too entrenched in AI.

TLDR: games are art, and art is a human endeavor. People will not care about your art if nobody made it, and your art will not be good unless a person's making it. People are naturally drawn to good direction and clear effort, but don't discount marketing. for people to care about your game they'll need to actually see it. You can't maintain your own coding skills or a large game if you rely on AI for all your code.

EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION ON A FEW THINGS:
AI Assisted coding is a can of worms that I'm not going to be discussing in depth. My paragraphs on AI code refer to vibe coding (fully or mostly using AI to code your game). There's vague and ill-explored merit to AI assisted coding.

A large amount of gamers specifically care about if you've put care and effort into your game. if they see AI generated art, they're not gonna buy it. I've seen games tank in sales over it.