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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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The problem with AI in games is that right now it's a mark of crap.

If I see a game with telltale AI art, what is more likely? That it's someone's passion project, that a great writer wrote some passable code, but couldn't draw anything himself and couldn't afford an artist? Or that someone prompted his AI:

  • "hey, write a story for another NTS VN that happens inside a phone"
  • "hey, turn this story into a Ren'Py game with placeholder images"
  • "hey, go through this Ren'Py game and generate a prompt for each placeholder image"
  • "hey, go to Itch.io and make a store page for this new Ren'Py game I wrote"?

Ninety percent of everything is crap, but that was true long before AI. You can look at user reviews to find the most popular games, then play the demo to see if it's worth committing to the game.

Yes, the vast majority of AI NTS games have been Netorase Phone clones with shitty writing, shitty art, shitty gameplay, and a shitty update schedule. So be it. You don't have to play them. You can just ignore them and focus on the gems. User reviews screen off use of AI assets.

90% of everything is crap. But 99.9% of ai slop is crap. Maybe you want to sort through it to find tbe gems but I'm not interested.

AI likely to change the definition of crap, too. There's always been tons of crap on the Steam storefront and the AI generation is likely going to atleast ensure a certain level of useability versus the passionate hack generation.