The problem isn’t the maps being static and finite, it’s that nobody designs maps for emergent and dynamic gameplay anymore. CoD might have dozens of maps but they’re all designed for perfect sterile balance with the same lane concepts.

Some of my favorite multiplayer games have only 3-4 maps but each is distinct and plays well to different tactics. Usually they’re based around strong points and webs of approach which gives more options for fresh experience each time you play (“wow never noticed that flank” - “oh this window gives a great angle over this courtyard” - “oh a grenade can be thrown just perfectly over that building” - etc…)

In a sense, good progression isn’t flat mechanical unlocks but building up game and map knowledge. You can choose to explore different facets of the game and it always stays interesting. Competitive ranked multiplayer ruined this because going off meta means losing the game for your team.

Hot take: single player games are lame, co-op is where it’s at. That’s not to say there aren’t good single player games or I didn’t enjoy them in the past, but my evolving tastes and circumstances make me mostly skip them.

1. Games in general have no respect for my time, so if I’m getting on for an extended session it’s going to be with my friends. If they do respect my time, why should I pay $40+ for an 8 hour experience when I could buy a dozen used books for that price and get more content and variety?
2. Even games with compelling storytelling suffer because there’s a core conflict between who’s in control of the pacing and scene focus. What do I gain from holding a controller during the 8 hours of cutscenes in MSG4? Why play Dark Souls if I manage to miss out on 80% of the subtle world building? Does having a branching plot really make a story better?
3. Putting aside narrative, games without a human element are either dopamine toys or simulators. Most games aren’t honest about that and are a palette swapped Total War, a tweaked 2D platformer, a fighting game with [gimmick], etc… It’s very rare to see innovation because innovation is hard. Even harder when you’re spending time on assets like character art, music, and world lore instead of the one thing that make games games: mechanics.

I’ll still play the odd rogue like or crusader kings to kill time, but I generally don’t feel the need to expand my catalogue unless a game looks fun as a platform for social play (friendslop as some might say).

I don’t doubt it’s possible to get better consistency but the juice is really not worth the squeeze for me. You end up churning through huge expensive models, orchestrating sub agents, writing out boilerplate hand-holding instructions (“please don’t break this, stop trying to commit to main, please lint ffs…”).

I don’t use it for Java but that would make sense with rigid enterprise patterns and VeryVerboseNamesThatAreEasierForAModelThanAHumanFactoryClazz {...

I don’t think our career is boned, moreso that all juniors trying to get in are boned. Everyone who knows what going on transition to a more hands-off architect role.

But like I said, our tokens are heavily subsidized right now. When they pull the rug, code monkey jobs will start to get listed again (with lower salaries of course).

Things I’ve realized while working with AI (Claude code):

• It’s fantastic for very small macros and medium length scripts. Think dev ops stuff, pre-commit hooks, transforming data. Keep it small enough to manually review and something you can run without destroying anything important. This can massively boost your codebase QoL. [Double bonus for not wasting tokens to solve the same problem over and over]
• It’s decent-to-good at debugging but not consistent with fixes. It can find some utf encoding edge case that might have taken you 1hr+ but suggest the dumbest bandaid fix you’ve ever seen. Also very good at spinning up unit test suites for basic edge cases.
• Due to obvious training bias, it’s pretty good with common libraries and cloud platform infrastructure. It could probably help with writing a complex cron call, debugging regex or fixing an IaC config. On the flip side it won’t bother to use the latest package version or know your niche/new library.
• It does better with greenfield because exploring your codebase introduces a ton of bias. It might try to fit in an ugly hack when a refactor to simplify everything is way easier.
• It’s absolutely garbage with UI, just throws the most disorganized HTML together that isn’t reactive or reusable. OK enough for ugly internal stuff but God help anyone relying on it for that.
• This is setting up to be the biggest rug pull in history. People that buy into it heavily just to save a couple bucks on engineer payroll are going to be fucked when they start ratcheting up the token price.

All in all it can be useful when used with care but will never be a magic bullet.