David Szymanski
Indie Game Developer (DUSK, Iron Lung)
Indie developer behind DUSK and Iron Lung, credited with revitalizing the boomer-shooter genre. Dismisses generative AI as a machine for “subpar stock photos, buggy code,” and a signal to players that a developer doesn’t care.
In his words
A complicated machine for generating subpar stock photos, buggy code, and a big neon sign for your audience that says “I don’t give a fuck” — and I’m not really in the market for any of those.
Your creative voice is defined by your limitations and how you work around those limitations, as much as it’s defined by the ideas you have. If you have a copying algorithm solve all those problems for you, what exactly sets your finished work apart from the things the algorithm copied?
Biography
David Szymanski (born 1989) is an American indie game developer best known for DUSK (2018), the New Blood Interactive shooter widely credited with single-handedly revitalizing the retro “boomer shooter” genre, and Iron Lung (2022), a claustrophobic submarine horror game that YouTuber Markiplier adapted into a feature film. Working largely solo, he has also shipped Squirrel Stapler, The Pony Factory, and Butcher’s Creek, building one of the most devoted audiences in indie horror.
A neon sign that says you don’t care
In a June 2026 interview with GamesRadar+, Szymanski laid out why he wants nothing to do with generative AI as a development tool. He argued that any case for the technology has to begin by waving off “all the ethical concerns about plagiarism, environmental impact, and job security, which on their own are enough to put me off the technology in its current forms” — and that even setting those aside, the output isn’t worth it.
Right now the siren’s song of AI is that it’s really fast and really easy. There’s definitely a place for fast and easy, but there’s also a place for slow and difficult.
Szymanski is careful to say he isn’t against AI “as a whole technology” and sees domains where it could genuinely help — his objection is to generative AI in creative work, where he believes creativity lives in solving the problems between an idea and the finished result. “In its current form I don’t have any interest in generative AI as a development tool,” he told GamesRadar+, “and I don’t think my audience has any interest in me using it either.” His position echoes fellow indie developers like Eric Barone, who has pledged to keep his games AI-free.
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/david-szymanski