{"id":776986,"date":"2026-07-03T05:24:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/776986\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T05:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:24:18","slug":"indie-game-engine-godot-bans-ai-after-massive-coding-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/776986\/","title":{"rendered":"Indie Game Engine Godot Bans AI After Massive Coding Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in February, the open-source indie game engine Godot, used to make hits like Slay the Spire 2<\/a>, was in the midst of a pretty messy problem: the engine\u2019s GitHub repository, which allows developers to contribute to the engine itself, was drowning in AI-generated pull requests<\/a>. Contributors complained of a \u201cshitshow\u201d where nothing made sense, and game developers using the engine noticed a massive bottleneck where pull requests took significantly longer to gain approval. Currently, Godot\u2019s GitHub has over 5,000 unresolved pull requests. It even caused Godot\u2019s project manager, R\u00e9mi Verschelde, to speak out about the ongoing mess.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, AI slop [pull requests] are becoming increasingly draining and demoralizing for #Godot maintainers,\u201d Verschelde wrote on Bluesky<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Godot revealed changes to its contribution policy<\/a> that require \u201call code to be human-authored\u201d in an attempt to curb the onslaught of AI-generated junk. The policy also enforces the engine\u2019s preexisting ban on vibe coding. However, using AI for \u201cmenial\u201d tasks like finding and replacing phrases, or autocompleting code, is still allowed as long as it\u2019s accompanied by a proper disclosure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI contributions have the added pain of being demoralizing,\u201d the update reads. \u201cReviewing PRs is already tedious work, but it is rewarding because reviewers generally feel that their efforts are contributing to educating a new contributor (who may become a future maintainer\/reviewer). If your feedback on PRs is just being absorbed by a machine and not going towards mentoring a potential future maintainer, it becomes much harder to justify spending your free time on PR review.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policy also requires that communication in messages, like descriptions of GitHub issues or pull requests, must be written by humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our maintainers volunteer their time to review your issue, PR, or proposal, they do not want to talk to a machine,\u201d the policy reads. \u201cThis is a basic principle of respect.\u201d Nice!<\/p>\n

Godot\u2019s contribution policy<\/a> was already fairly anti-AI, mentioning that the team is \u201cconvinced that human effort results in better and more relevant contributions.\u201d But this new, more explicit policy might help curb the bottleneck caused by contributors who ignored the team\u2019s preference. Godot users seem pretty happy with the change, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank god, hope this helps out in the long run,\u201d one Reddit user wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Godot is a fantastic little engine (I\u2019ve worked with it myself!) that grew increasingly appealing after titans like Unity<\/a> and Unreal began incorporating generative AI tools<\/a> and introducing wacky policies that alienated developers<\/a>. I know I\u2019ll be using it again whenever I get around to my next game dev project.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in February, the open-source indie game engine Godot, used to make hits like Slay the Spire 2,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,275409,61],"class_list":["post-776986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-godot","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}