1989: A Game Designer Predicted AI Rip-Offs
Games at the press of a button: The Rip-O-Bot (1989)
In 1989, Bubble Bobble designer Fukio Mitsuji (MTJ) wrote a column for Japanese arcade magazine GAMEST warning that a machine—the "Rip-O-Bot"—could soon generate copycat games at the press of a button. He saw the industry's imitation mindset as a dead end, arguing that the only lasting weapon is original ideas. Decades later, his satire reads as prophecy, and his question—what's left for human designers?—is more urgent than ever.
Robots can do imitation too!—don’t you agree? Let’s put our heads and our hearts into the sort of original work that only humans can do.
- schnevets
It's funny that this was written in 1989, right after the Japanese pulled the industry out of the 80s Atari crash, where shovelware destroyed consumer confidence in Atari products (I know that is a simplification, but the Nintendo Seal of Approval carried weight).
The fact is the 90s was riddled with derivatives, where every cartoon character had a derivative side-scroller of varying quality. The scale of a cartridge game grew enough that just changing animation quality, physics, attack methods, and level design was enough to make the Aladin side-scroller a different enough experience from the Lion King side-scroller that a customer would be satisfied by both purchases.
I'd say we have lived in the world MTJ predicted since this was written, but innovation and quality were hardly ever buried by rip-o-bot churn. Even today, I'd consider the "slop" genres ($5 co-op games, stream-worthy horror projects) to be healthy ecosystems where the cream typically rises to the top.
- qingcharles
Very prescient! That said, should AI tools allow us to create more original games? When you can now prototype something very quickly and decide whether to keep going or tear it down in minutes...