ChatGPT helps Jim Chaney , a game developer in central Florida near Orlando, compress about two weeks of Unity work into two days when he’s building a high-fidelity avatar feasibility test. His client wanted to know how far mobile hardware could push a facial-tracking avatar. Jim imported a Pixar-style model into Unity, rigged it, and asked ChatGPT to scaffold the project, install packages, prepare the import workflow, and guide him through software he had never used. Games have shaped Jim’s life since Christmas 1989, when he unwrapped a Nintendo Entertainment System with the Zapper, Duck Hunt, and Super Mario Bros. He spent the 1990s playing computer games and RPGs, then built his career in corporate IT, installing computers and building websites. During the pandemic, he taught himself Unity from YouTube and books. “Game development allows for creativity, allows you to tell stories,” he says.
The first game he released on Steam got about eight reviews, and started him down the path of helping others build games, too. His first contracts were small, but the release let clients see that he could finish what he started. That proof helped him win larger studio assignments. Clients find him through Upwork and, increasingly, LinkedIn.
The game-development market started out skeptical about AI, but that has shifted since Jim began. In 2023, some job posts banned AI outright. Then it moved into a “don’t ask, don’t tell” period. But now he says it is rare for a client to object, and many arrive with their own AI-generated game-design documents expecting AI to be part of the work. Those documents give clients useful vocabulary, but little substance, so Jim gets on the phone and has to “almost drag” their idea out of them.
Jim’s ChatGPT practice began with a stubborn multiplayer networking problem in 2023. Its answer was imperfect, but it got him over the hurdle. Today he uses ChatGPT to build and inspect projects, supervise agent workflows, estimate proposals, and streamline parts of his workflows on Upwork.
Jim focuses his efforts on the integration layer between the model and Unity, while translating a client’s aim into technical requirements, and judging what looks right. Games that are just browser prototypes come quickly, but a commercial interactive world in Unity or Unreal still demands deep knowledge of the engine. “There is a level of abstract human expertise needed between the game engine and the model, as well as a layer of art, which is subjective. That layer is infinite.”
He sees a divide between people chasing a quick prototype and those who live with an idea long enough to give it substance. Really committed developers may work part-time jobs and “push their baby out into the world eight years later.” AI can generate a demo, but without “heart or substance,” Jim says, it is a mannequin that cannot capture a human soul. For creators with something to say, the tools expand what one person can attempt. “There’s never been a better time in human history to make art,” he says. “Never.” He released his latest game on Steam this month. 
