Game design is hard. Back in the day I released 4 flash games. 2 completely tanked, 1 did ok, and one went quite well (hundreds of years total time spent in game).

There's a lot to getting it right, and like all software, you have to built it for your target market. There's no easy AI solution to getting a fun and engaging core loop. Nor is there one for building the right level of complexity and balancing the learning curve.

I think a lot of people who can't/don't code see themselves as game designers and had thought that AI would let them make games, and are now finding it wasn't really about the code after all. That, and if you can't code, vibe coding alone isn't really good enough for much beyond flash-level games (yet).

I agree. I'm not a game dev. I had a game idea and vibe-coded it with Claude. I kinda got what I had in mind but the game is just not engaging. I don't even know what to prompt. I tried "how could the be made more engaging" but no good ideas are falling out. I just have a lack of intuition for this kind of development. And Claude doesn't help.

On the other hand it should be so much easier to port full games to mobile. For example Stacklands is a game that would feel right at home on a iPhone or iPad, but currently it's not an app I can download and play on a bus.