AI-Built Flight Sim Becomes a Business
This is a submission for the Future Writing Challenge: How Technology Is Changing Things.
Hey friend,
Look what i just came across something that blew my mind, and I had to share it with you. An indie hacker named Peter, with no prior experience in flight simulators, managed to build a fully functional multiplayer flying game in just a few hours. How? By using AI tools like Cursor and large language models (LLMs) such as Grog to write most of the code for him.
Instead of relying on a complex game engine, Peter built everything using HTML, vanilla JavaScript, and Three.js for 3D graphics. On the back-end, Python WebSockets handle real-time multiplayer synchronization, broadcasting player positions 10 times per second. The red planes in the game? They’re real players flying in real time. No Unity. No Unreal Engine. Just AI-assisted coding and lightweight web technologies.
From Experiment to Business
At first, this was just a fun experiment. But Peter took it a step further by adding a buy button—offering an F-16 jet for $29.99. To his surprise, within days, he had sold nine of them and even landed a $1,000 ad deal. What started as an AI-powered project turned into a real business overnight.
This caught even Elon Musk’s attention. AI-assisted game development is shaking up the industry, making it easier for people with ideas—but limited coding experience—to create games in record time. Some critics call these AI-generated games “sloppy,” but they’re missing the bigger picture. As AI improves, we’ll see more sophisticated rendering, physics, and interactivity, transforming simple prototypes into immersive, high-quality experiences.
The barriers to entry are crumbling. Imagine being able to build a game, an app, or any digital experience in hours instead of years. This isn’t just about gaming—it’s about how AI is democratizing creativity in real time. We’re witnessing a shift where anyone with a vision can turn an idea into reality with AI as their co-creator.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you think AI is changing game development for the better?
Talk soon, Sanket
Additional Prize Categories
This submission qualifies for Ripple Effects / Explain Like I’m Five.
