Andrew Maximov has been working in the computer games industry for 12 years, and despite all that experience, he's still amazed at the amount of money spent developing the biggest titles.
“I worked at PlayStation, and the last game I worked on cost me $220 just to make.” [£176m]And if you spend twice that on marketing, you'll get $500 million in revenue every time you release a game, which is a bit unsustainable for most companies. ”
He believes that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a key role in curbing the soaring costs of game production and saving video game designers critical time by automating repetitive tasks.
His company, Promethean AI, provides developers with a set of tools to build their own virtual worlds. Maximoff wants to disrupt the current way games are made.
“What we're trying to do is translate this into a system that can learn directly from the artists, allowing them to be the creators of their own automations.”
Humans will continue to play an important role in the production process. AI works hand in hand with humans, enabling them to be more creative.
“After creating a vision for a game, artists can ask the AI for feedback with the click of a button. Artists then pull examples from a library of concept art and digital ideas related to their projects.” said Maximoff. Say.
AI sometimes comes up with surprising ideas.
“I remember once trying to build a police station and asking the AI to staff it, and it coming back with donuts on every desk.
“Another time, we were building an apartment and there were socks under the coffee table all the time. I thought it might be a bug, but it turned out we had labeled it a bachelor apartment. “It turned out, so I guess it was logical to some extent,” he says.
California software company Inworld also employs AI to build elements of its computer games.
We have created an engine that allows developers to add realism to the game world and emotional depth to the characters. The company is also working on something called Narrative Graph, which uses AI to help create storylines, developed in partnership with Xbox.
CEO Kailan Gibbs told the BBC he believes AI will allow developers to “dream bigger than ever before”.
“This engine allows developers to add AI agents that can see, sense, and perceive the world around them, while also interacting with players and performing in-game actions. “If you can infuse it with cognitive capabilities, it unlocks entirely new capabilities: storytelling and gameplay paradigms,” he says.
Nick Walton is CEO of gaming company Latitude.io and believes in the power of AI to personalize gaming experiences.
“We're new to AI, but as it advances, we'll see very dynamic, adaptive worlds with characters that feel alive, where you, the protagonist, can do unique things and make the world more We're going to see a story arc that has a very unique impact on .
“When you play a game where you find a town that no one cares about and no one else has spent time in, you get invested in it and develop relationships with all the characters that appear in it.” he told the BBC. .
His company developed AI Dungeon, a game where players can choose from different worlds and create their own stories within them.
“It’s like an old text adventure where you input an action and the game decides what happens next.
“But the main difference is that instead of having developers imagine everything they do in advance, the AI can dynamically decide what happens next, so any action is possible.”
He said he was surprised by the success of Dungeon, the first version of which was released in 2019.
“It started as a side project, we put it on the internet, and within a week 100,000 people were playing it,” he says.
“I think it has great replayability because the story is different each time and you can go in any direction. And there's the ability to make real choices, which has always been a goal in many games.”
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Increasing reliance on AI could also have ripple effects on humans in the industry.
Andrew Wilson, CEO of computer game giant EA, recently told attendees at a conference that about 60% of a game publisher's development process could be influenced by AI tools. The company recently laid off 5% of its workforce, or about 670 people.
Maximoff doesn't necessarily think AI will replace humans, but rather gives them more “creative dignity,” but it does give developers a very repetitive task. That's something that's been lost at major game publishers.
“There's a lot of developers who saw 'Harry Potter' or 'Lord of the Rings' and wanted to do something great, and now they're going to put a stone outside a castle for a year. “I am completely occupied with this,” he said.
“There's a lot to be said for restoring the true purpose and value of these jobs and giving all artists the opportunity to say, 'Now I can make my own game.'”
Gibb agrees. “We hear from narrative designers and developers that our platform brings even more interactivity and engagement to games, but they need deep, thoughtful input from humans to create the illusion of intelligence. , the rich backstories, memories, knowledge, and goals of in-world characters are all designed by the writers, and it is to enhance human creativity.”