Fully 87% of game developers are already using AI agents. That's according to a new survey from Google Cloud and The Harris Poll of 615 game developers in the United States, South Korea, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. It's also just the tip of the AI-berg.
Some of the tasks completed by AI aren't immediately worrisome and you'd think will speed up development and reduce costs. The report says AI is proving useful for automating "cumbersome and repetitive tasks", freeing developers to focus more on creative elements.
For instance, 47% of developers reported that AI is, "speeding up playtesting and balancing of mechanics, 45% say it is assisting in localization and translation of game content, and 44% cite it for improving code generation and scripting support." Overall, 94% of developers surveyed, "expect AI to reduce overall development costs in the long term (3+ years)."
That could help keep smaller developers in business, it might mean niche game titles are more viable, and so on. But it's only part of the picture. Arguably one of the great fears among gamers is that game design, stories and dialogue will be replaced with the sort of AI slop that's now bunging up YouTube and social media.
Well, slop or not, AI is increasingly being used for those purposes. Google's survey found that 36% of respondents are using AI for dynamic level design, animation and rigging, and dialogue writing, while 37% of developers report they have, "enhanced experimentation with new gameplay or narrative concepts."
The report is pretty granular about many aspects of game design and development and makes for an intriguing read. Overall, Google is nothing if not upbeat about the implications of all this. Of course it would be, considering it is one of the largest AI researchers on the planet. It has skin in the game, and it's trying to sell AI to the world.
"Overall, the research found widespread adoption of gen AI in the games industry—and a surprising level of optimism for it. AI is already making a big difference in developer workflows, including productivity and creative tasks.
"Developers also see promising possibilities with AI agents and other emerging AI tools to accelerate game development and enhance player experiences," the report says.
Of course, the end game, pun very much intended, of all this is presumably games fully AI generated in response to user prompts. "I want to play a first person shooter set in ancient Rome, but with modern weapons, procedural crime elements and Disney characters," or whatever. And off you go.
Of course, except the one bit that almost definitely won't be doable is the Disney characters due to IP ownership. Unless you pay extra for the Disney AI gaming subscription or similar. But you get the idea.
If that puts the burden on users to come up with game narratives, semi-curated games where the basic premise is tweaked by user prompts might make more sense for most mainstream gamers. But the main point is that it might all be AI generated one day. At which point will there be a submarket for "artisanal" hand-coded games with human-written narratives, real voices and the rest? All of this is to come, much is to be decided. But the the direction of travel looks pretty unambiguous, and a little icky.
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