Ok… Just don’t expect me to pay for a game that you didn’t bother paying artist and programmers to make, that is, if I had any desire to play slop games in the first place.
The most reasonable argument against software and media piracy has always been based on the ethics, morality and sustainability of financially supporting the people who create things that you enjoy. But in a new era of lazy and cheap generative slop that is trained on the theft and exploitation of the working class, why would anyone give a shit about supporting the “developers”–if you can even still call them that.
Idk about artists, but programmers you’re gonna hire in 2026 are almost all gonna Use AI. Only programmers I know that don’t use AI are millennial indie developers or interns at corpos who actually wanna learn stuff.
I myself was against AI, but this is what I saw with my own eyes. If it’s a corporation, it’s 99℅ using generative AI for coding. Still am, but this is the reality.
I still write all my code by hand, but I am a Xennial. It basically makes some job opportunities impossible for me, especially any that want existing experience with it.
As a programmer myself I haven’t found that to be my experience. For every programmer I know that embraces generative AI tools, I know at least 1 or 2 who are critical of them, be it for ethical reasons or technical reasons. I’m not seeing a huge increase in productivity or quality patches either… But then again I’m probably in that camp of anti-corporate FOSS-loving indie millennials…
Regardless… whether it’s common practice or not doesn’t change the point that piracy is a whole lot easier to morally justify when developers and publishers are creating things an in unethical and exploitative way.
Publishers lose whatever ethical high ground they may have had to wring their hands about piracy when they are leveraging other people’s stolen labor.
As an intern at my office, it was genuinely a perplexing experience for me to see team leads just vibe code production software. Glad it’s not the case where you are.
Ok… Just don’t expect me to pay for a game that you didn’t bother paying artist and programmers to make, that is, if I had any desire to play slop games in the first place.
The most reasonable argument against software and media piracy has always been based on the ethics, morality and sustainability of financially supporting the people who create things that you enjoy. But in a new era of lazy and cheap generative slop that is trained on the theft and exploitation of the working class, why would anyone give a shit about supporting the “developers”–if you can even still call them that.
Idk about artists, but programmers you’re gonna hire in 2026 are almost all gonna Use AI. Only programmers I know that don’t use AI are millennial indie developers or interns at corpos who actually wanna learn stuff.
I myself was against AI, but this is what I saw with my own eyes. If it’s a corporation, it’s 99℅ using generative AI for coding. Still am, but this is the reality.
I still write all my code by hand, but I am a Xennial. It basically makes some job opportunities impossible for me, especially any that want existing experience with it.
As a programmer myself I haven’t found that to be my experience. For every programmer I know that embraces generative AI tools, I know at least 1 or 2 who are critical of them, be it for ethical reasons or technical reasons. I’m not seeing a huge increase in productivity or quality patches either… But then again I’m probably in that camp of anti-corporate FOSS-loving indie millennials…
Regardless… whether it’s common practice or not doesn’t change the point that piracy is a whole lot easier to morally justify when developers and publishers are creating things an in unethical and exploitative way.
Publishers lose whatever ethical high ground they may have had to wring their hands about piracy when they are leveraging other people’s stolen labor.
As an intern at my office, it was genuinely a perplexing experience for me to see team leads just vibe code production software. Glad it’s not the case where you are.