I entirely agree with the first statement but I don't see the second happening. AI generation is far too inconsistent between one image and the next, even with a finely tuned prompt to the extent that someone with the artistic skill to draw the image in the first place would likely spend more time "touching up" what they just generated than just drawing the same thing again if the only difference is a facial expression like we commonly see in SU already. In a situation like that, artists - ones using digital tools at least - are better served using old practices like "ghosts" (this is what I like to call them anyway, the boring among us probably just call them templates), the outline of the character and pose they're using before adding the details onto it. These ghosts can have as much or as little granular detail as the artist needs so they only need to do certain aspects once. A common example is artists who draw on/off art of a character. They'll draw the character naked first, leave the face blank and draw increasing amounts of clothing onto the ghost along with the intended facial expression. If it's a commonly used character they'll have presets they can drag-n-drop onto the ghost or selection of ghosts similar to how Doki Doki Literature Club has numerous poses and expressions. This way the artist doesn't have to keep redrawing the same outline, the same hair strands and so on over and over again. It saves time but it still doesn't mean the process is quick. Compared to the irregularity of AI, it's simply not worth converting to such methods for this use case.
Let's also keep in mind this is a game most of us are playing for free. Yes, the whales are getting milked (an odd result of mixing common terms in the gaming sphere but fuck it) but that's their choice. GSG's first post is the one we all download the game from. That's someone who's happily taking a pay-what-you-want pricing model which is extremely generous in the current market and people are still bitching about a game they're getting for free and calling the creator lazy or greedy. Personally, if I was GSG, I'd've said "fuck you greedy little shits" and fucked off a long time ago, locking my game to whichever premium site worked best for me and kept throwing take-downs at F95 just to spite the assholes. He's clearly a bigger man than me and than a not-insignificant amount of the people in this thread. Even with the dips in quality and the constant grammar errors/typos I find in the game, I'm just glad there's some evidence he's still enjoying making this game and finds his little enjoyment in leaving cryptic emojis on the haters.
And for the record, I'm not one of the whales who's just tricking themself into thinking they're making a sound investment. I haven't spent a penny on this game despite having put at least 100 hours into this game (I wish F95Checker tracked play time, that'd be really useful). Sorry about that, Gunsmoke Games, I promise I'll actually throw some cash your deserved-way once I'm more financially stable. So you and others may call GSG all kinds of horrible things but without him, the way he chooses to market his game and the other creators who do the same, I know I wouldn't still be around without the escapism these games have been able to provide me with from the crapfest that has been my real life these past months and I'm glad these comments haven't pushed him and the others out of the market.
Anyway, Ted Talk's over, back to your usual programming of bitching and armchair-expert-ing.
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