AI didn’t kill gaming.
Publishers did – by trying to replace half their studios with chatbots that can’t even land a punchline.
We’re in the middle of the weirdest transition gaming has ever seen: massive layoffs, skyrocketing budgets, and executives chanting “AI will solve everything” like it’s going to cook dinner and tuck the kids in, too.
But here’s a punchline:
After firing the artists, writers, and QA testers, studios are now asking AI to review the games they made with AI. Or allowing reviewers to use AI for the “review”.
Which begs the question…
Why stop there?
Why not let AI play the games too.
Why not let it give itself awards.
Why not let it form its own Metacritic echo chamber and leave humans to enjoy what we’ve always loved:
games made by actual people.
The Industry Did This to Itself
2024-2025 has been a parade of layoffs so absurd it borders on performance art.
Studios say:
“We’re embracing AI to improve efficiency.”
Translation:
“We don’t want to pay humans who ask for lunch breaks and healthcare.”
Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, Take-Two, Bungie, CD Projekt, Epic – they all announced “AI initiatives” suspiciously close to cutting jobs.
Even Square Enix openly said:
“AI will play a central role in our game development workflow moving forward.”
Capcom chimed in earlier this year:
“AI tools can increase efficiency, but cannot replace human creativity.”
…right before experimenting with AI NPC dialog.
And one indie dev bluntly told PCGamer:
“AI saved us money, not time.”
Meanwhile, over here at The Outerhaven, we’ve covered all of this with the same exhausted sigh gamers everywhere are feeling:
“The human touch is what makes gaming worth playing. Without it, AI might as well be playing with itself.”
-The Outerhaven Editorial Team
(Yes, I actually said that. And meant it.)
AI Reviewing AI – the Ouroboros of Bad Ideas
Some outlets are already leaning into AI-written previews and impressions. AI-written “reviews” are circulating right now – flat, soulless, and sounding like a coworker who’s trying to be polite while clearly hating the meeting.
You can practically hear the algorithm sweating.
So imagine an AI-generated open world where:
- the quests are GPT-written
- the NPCs talk like a spreadsheet with abandonment issues
- the environments are stitched together from 200 stock assets
- the story branches were optimized for “engagement efficiency metrics”
…then the same AI reviews it with:
“8/10 – Engaging engagement with highly engaging engagement loops.”
A closed loop.
A digital terrarium of mediocrity.
Which led me to the obvious realization:
Why not let the AIs have their own little gaming circle?
Let them battle over which neural network writes the best plot twist.
Let them speedrun the games they made, review them, argue about them in a forum built for their own amusement.
Humans can get back to actually enjoying games.
You know-the whole point.
The Satirical Middle Punch – “The AI Awards”
Picture it:
Game Awards 2026: The AI Segment
- A hologram walks on stage and immediately crashes.
- ChatGPT-7 reads a speech about “creative synergy.”
- A generated character wins Best Performance.
- No one claps because the audience is 98% server racks.
Meanwhile gamers are at home playing Baldur’s Gate 3 again because it was made by people who gave a damn.
The Turn – Here’s Why This Actually Scares the Hell Out of Us
Games are emotional.
Games are human.
Games are messy.
Every iconic moment in gaming came from a human brain having a spark:
- The emotional gut punch of The Last of Us
- The handcrafted stories of Hades
- The inspired chaos of Baldur’s Gate 3
- The passion behind Celeste
- The character and soul of God of War
- The weird charm of Undertale
- The mind-bending wildness of Death Stranding
Show me the AI that can replicate Kojima’s “I dreamed this while dehydrated in a bathtub” energy.
It doesn’t exist.
And for board gamers like us, like me?
The tactile, creative, deeply handmade side of tabletop design is one of the last bastions of purely human creativity.
Take that away?
And we’re left with sterile, optimized systems in place of imagination.
Final Thoughts – Leave the Joy to Us
AI absolutely has a place.
It can help with:
- debugging
- pathfinding
- asset iteration
- testing
- accessibility improvements
- performance optimization
…all good things.
But the moment AI starts replacing why we make games – the humanity, the chaos, the emotion – we lose everything that makes this medium special.
So if the industry keeps pushing this automation cliff?
Fine.
Let the machines have their automated development cycles, automated builds, automated reviews, automated awards…
their automated sandbox where they fight for digital supremacy.
Just don’t take away the one thing we’ve always done better:
finding joy in games made by real people.
I was inspired to write this because of https://www.theouterhaven.net/embracer-group-and-crystal-dynamics-layoff-employees-for-the-second-time-in-two-months/
