A Pokémon game “created” with the AI software Genie has been doing the rounds online, and it’s genuinely sad to see.
I know the last few Pokémon games haven’t been everyone’s cup of tea. Pokémon Legends: Arceus was a nice spin on the series’ formula but lacked visual sauce, and Pokémon Scarlet & Violet were good but held back by performance issues.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A was another decent spin-off from what we’d typically expect from the franchise but again the visuals weren’t all there, and the lack of voice acting is getting beyond a joke now.
That said I’d much rather take whatever Game Freak gives me than have my games made by AI, which is why I’m seething at these fake games people are spewing out using Google's latest AI tool - Google Genie.
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My timeline on X is flooded with them at the moment, with “gamers” preaching at how much more efficient these AI tools are at making games than actual developers.
One video presented what looked like a Pokémon game running at a crisp 10fps, with various terrain pieces disappearing and reappearing as the AI tried to remember what it was supposed to load from the original image.
Check it out here.
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Unbelievable - and not for good reasons. Where's the craft? The love of the artform?
To me, it looks like one of those fake 'This is what Pokemon will look like in 2013' memes. But it has got people thinking about the inclusion of AI in video games, moving forward.
What Google Genie Means For The Future of Gaming
Sure, Google Genie might be faster at “making” games but let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that makes it better.
AI is only as good as the content it's fed, which means none of what you see is original in the slightest. It’s merely cherry-picking from existing material and trying to pass it off as a new creation.
There is no soul in a video game created by an AI. No real thought has been put into how it looks, how it plays, what there is for players to do, it’s purely smoke and mirrors.
Some of the last few Pokémon games made by Game Freak have been laughable, absolutely, but I’d much rather play a game made by real people than AI slop and so should you.
Even games that are spectacular have been fed to this machine like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Open-world Hyrule was an intentional choice by the developers and they made sure there was still adventure to be had on your way from A to B.
AI, on the other hand, would just think it’s a big, empty field and generate it as such.
Google Genie is not the future of game development, and if you truly loved games, why would you want it to be?