Re:Jonathan Blow – If AI Solved Coding, Why Is My Software S...
by kgeist on Saturday November 14, 2026 @05:48AM
(#50495931)
Most games are basically throwaway projects. You write it once, maybe put out a DLC, and then you move on to the next one. There's no incentive to keep the codebase maintainable long term, because there is no long term (unless you're making something like WoW). Games also aren't deterministic by nature, so some glitches and imprecisions won't even register as bugs to players.
I'd argue a database engine is far more complex than a game engine. It has to be 100% reliable, and the codebase needs to be clean enough to stay maintainable for decades.
This is an absurd claim that gamedev folk like to tell themselves. Having seen the mess of several engine codebases, incl AAA engines and the memory leaking unoptimized state of many games, I don't think so.
There's many safety critical real time systems that are both more complex and approached with a lot more thorough design. Let's just say I would not trust a Jonathan Blow to put people on the moon.
That's not to say gamedev isn't challenging, but it's not quite as complex as the industry would like to think.