I remember when digital art itself faced tons of scrutiny back in the day. While AI art is different, I think there's a huge survivorship bias happening... for every successful AI game we see, there are 100+ failures we don't.Pixiv and pinterest were definitely worth using before AI made searching for good indie stuff impossible. I used to have a pixiv sub, not anymore now.
deviantART I will agree was on the decline well before that. They actually train on the work you submit too, no one should use that site lmao.
Actually had a poll about this on Discord.
Most people preferred quality hand-drawn 2DCG over good AI art.
However, most also preferred good AI-generated art over mediocre hand-drawn work.
One of these is definitely easier to achieve than the other, which I think explains a lot about the current landscape.