A reader is convinced that generative AI will be the most important tool for making next gen video games, despite the many legal and ethnical issues.
AI generated content is the future of media, the sooner we accept it the better.
We teeter at the brink of the next generation of gaming. The PlayStation 6, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox 5 console are all on the way in the next two years.
I wrote this article just over one year ago.
Unfortunately, my rather bleak outlook on the ‘collapse of a bloated games industry’ has been pretty accurate.
Studio closures despite successful game launches, multiple layoffs for large companies, financial crises for massive developers.
This, however, has also started the snowball to my second prediction. That is, ‘many new indie studios and interesting new game concepts being given room to thrive.’
AAA is no longer the focal point of a console sales pitch.
Everything is an Xbox.
Nintendo is (technologically) a full generation behind but has outsold everything.
PlayStation has Halo?!
The corelation between being all powerful and being a success has shattered over the last 10 years.
Now we look to the future. What can gaming do to cope with the exponentially growing demands of making a quality game?
I believe the future lies in AI generated content. When I say this, I don’t mean dubious copyright infringement or dodgy hand rendering. I mean using the power of AI in consoles to change how we play. There is already a foundation of artificial enhancement across gaming history.
Some AI support is fairly standard, such as making CPU opponents tougher when you change the difficulty settings in game. Others are more… nuanced or underdeveloped.
- NPCs: AI can be used to create non-player characters that act intelligently and creatively, mimicking human actions.
- Graphics: AI can be used to create photorealistic lighting, shadows, and reflections.
- Gameplay: AI-powered game engines can adapt gameplay based on player behaviour.
- Dialogue: AI can be used to create first drafts of dialogue, which can be selected from and polished by scriptwriters.
- Voice acting: AI can be used to create AI generated voices for prototyping.
- Motion capture: AI can be used to translate the movements and expressions of actors into animations for characters in games.
- Smart opponents: AI can be used to create AI powered opponents for players to battle.
Streamers even use ChatGPT enabled mods to allow their fans to change spoken dialogue live in game (often with hilarious consequences).
The AI content of the future, in my opinion, will be far grander.
Say you want to watch 1999 blockbuster The Matrix. You turn on your AI-flix app and select the movie. The app then gives you the option to ‘enhance/customise’ your viewing experience.
So instead of Keanu Reeves in the starring role of Neo you select a young Danny DeVito. Throw in Jet Li as Agent Smith and Dame Judi Dench as Morpheus too while you’re at it. [This would be super illegal – GC]
Finally, instead of pounding techno music and leather jackets you want classical music and formal wear.
Then you select ‘play’ and your Great Gatsby-esque masterpiece plays out just as you dreamt it would.
Dame Judi standing in a full ballgown saying ‘Show me’ after DeVito proclaims, ‘I know Kung Fu!’ brings a tear to your eye.
However, let’s go back to gaming advances we could see:
AI generated content from contextual/reactive dialogue using actors voices that no longer have to read 5,000 new lines for each expansion.
Classic and dynamic commentary teams, on sporting games, from bygone eras. No more muting the same 15 lines of drab, lifeless dialogue.
In-game content generated in the moment, without needing to wait for DLC to release.
Huge, copyright purchasable, libraries of ‘people’ stored for future use like a Shutterstock of voice and identity.
Actors will never have to work again and still get royalties every time someone wants to see or hear them in their favourite media. [The current strikes are precisely because they get no royalties with AI – GC]
Literally infinite, cost-free content to watch/hear/play at the click of a button.
Yes, it’s 100% an Orwellian nightmare, but it is the future.
By reader Jay Parry
(Photo by Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images)
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