The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence in game development has game makers on edge as machines begin to invent characters and worlds for the next generation of video games.
“Generative AI is already being used in commercial game development a lot more than people realise, but it’s being used in very small ways” such as dubbing, artwork or coding assistance, says Mike Cook, a game designer and lecturer in computer science at King’s College London.
Such use of AI is rarely noticeable to the player of the final product, he added.
A study by US startup Totally Human Media found that almost 20% of titles available this year via the Steam distribution platform revealed the use of generative AI during development.
That would account for several thousand games released in recent years, including mass-market giants like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” or the life simulation game “Inzoi.”
The growth of AI should allow studios to “merge several functions into one, supported by these tools,” said AI consultant Davy Chadwick, who predicted a “30 to 40% boost” to developer output.
Progress has been rapid, with the latest tools able to generate 3D assets such as characters or objects from a simple text prompt, which can then be placed directly into a game world.
“In the past, if you wanted to make a high-quality 3D model, it would cost you two weeks and a thousand dollars,” says Ethan Hu, founder of California-based startup Meshy.ai, which claims to have more than five million users.
“Now the cost is one minute and two dollars,” he said.
High stakes
Industry heavyweights have entered the field of generative AI from different angles, with Electronic Arts partnering with startup Stability AI, while Xbox maker Microsoft is developing its own model called “Muse.”
The stakes and potential rewards are high in the world’s largest cultural industry, which will generate nearly $190 million in revenue by 2025, according to data firm Newzoo.
Industry actors hope that new technology will both increase productivity and reduce the cost and time required to develop a high-quality game, says Tommy Thompson, founder of the ‘AI and Games’ platform.
But “there is a lot of distrust and fear” among workers in a sector that has already seen several layoffs in recent years, an employee of a French game studio said on condition of anonymity.
The tools “should make us more productive, but would ultimately mean job losses,” the worker added.
His own experiences with AI in game development showed that in 3D modeling, “the objects produced by this type of AI are extremely chaotic” and not suitable for immediate use in the game.
“Right now, it’s honestly a deal breaker… it’ll take the same amount of time to fix it up as it would to make it from scratch,” the developer added.
Such fears have stopped major industry players from making waves about their use of AI.
Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Quantic Dream all declined to comment when contacted AFP.
Rather than replacing artists, AI tools allow them to speed up their creative process by automating busy work, says Felix Balmonet, co-founder of French 3D asset generation startup Chat3D.
He added that his company was already working with “two of the five largest studios in the world.”
Picky players
Some in the industry already fear that refusing to use generative AI tools would effectively mean dropping out of the competition.
“We will have to ask ourselves whether we will use them in our next game,” said the head of a French studio that is “personally against” AI models and has just completed a multi-year project “without AI”.
Most publishers and investors contacted AFP said the use of AI was not a factor in their decisions to fund a development project.
“You have to be careful when using AI,” says Piotr Bajraszewski, head of business development at 11 bit Studios in Poland.
Gamers condemned his studio’s latest project, “The Alters,” after its release in June because it featured AI-generated text that was not pre-highlighted.
The studio said the content was simply a forgotten temporary copy, but the incident underscored the weight some players still place on the work of human creatives.
