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According to James Gwertzman, an interactie light artist and co-founder of PlayFab, the largest development in the video game business since 3D is generative AI. In a Twitter thread, he explains that generative AI art (Gen AI) is a revolutionary technology that is changing how games are made and will have a major impact on all areas of gaming development and game playing.
With Gen AI, the “iron triangle” can be completely broken because you can save time, money, and extend scope while maintaining excellent quality. High-quality assets that would have taken days or weeks to produce by hand can now be produced in hours.
He believes that games will be most affected among all forms of entertainment. They are the most intricate (in terms of the quantity of assets) and interactive (real-time). This results in a high barrier to entry and high development expenses for modern games, both of which are vulnerable to disruption by GenAI.
The development of generative AI models for all assets used in game production, including 3D assets, materials, character animation, sound effects, music, level design, and more, is underway. Currently, 2D images are receiving the most attention. Some examples of tools that have gained a lot of popularity recently are Stable Diffusion and MidJourney.
Additionally, change is happening faster. If one takes a look at the rise in the number of AI papers published each month, it seems there is a new method or development every day.
This has the effect of reducing the cost of content to almost nothing. Some designers are thus able to reduce the time required to produce a single concept art piece from weeks (end to end) to one hour, a 100+-to-1 cost reduction.
A new golden age
Although artists won’t be replaced, the type of work they do will alter. They no longer need to perform all of the work alone because AI is a capable helper who can make suggestions and carry out the tedious tasks. A new marketable skill will emerge from doing this successfully.
This will bring about a new “golden age” of game production, in which there will be an explosion of more inventive and imaginative games due to lower entry barriers. Teams will get smaller as quality and inventiveness increase.
Completely new games that were not feasible before AI will soon be released. An example of such a game is Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is so large that it would have been virtually impossible to create it by hand. Only an AI could have completed it.
Another is the role-playing game Arrowmancer, in which characters are generated by AI in real-time. For the first time, it is now possible to automatically create fresh material of all kinds while you play. Compared to procedural level generation, this has greater influence.
Due to the swift speed of research, new models are created and quickly abandoned before being replaced by larger or better models. All-inclusive solutions that focus on the requirements of a specific industry can be one method to create long-term value.
Runway, which provides video editing, green screen removal, in-painting, and motion tracking, is one such example for video artists. We are aware of numerous people who are developing similar all-in-one suites for the gaming sector.
The number of businesses working on generative AI for games can be seen in this market map, but given how quickly this field is developing, that number is likely to more than quadruple within the next 12 months.
Sound effects are one area where opportunity exists. There aren’t any firms selling GenAI for Sound FX despite the existence of numerous academic papers on the subject, but this will undoubtedly change.
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