“From A.I. “When you change your perspective, different parts of the industry are being swallowed up by other parts,” says Violet, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “Why hire a bunch of expensive concept artists and designers when you can just have an art director give an AI wrong instructions, get something of good enough quality very quickly, and have a couple of artists clean it up?”
So there’s a consensus that concept artists, graphic designers, asset artists, and illustrators have been the most affected by AI so far, as evidenced by the personal stories of game industry employees and laid-off workers themselves, as well as a plethora of posts on Reddit. Xand Beyond.
Generative AI is best at generating 2D images that cost-strapped studio managers deem “good enough” — a term AI-focused creative workers are now using to describe the kinds of results that AI produces that, while not nearly enough to replace great works of art, are still churning out. teeth It’s a threat to their livelihood. After all, some clients value cost over quality. Tasks like 3D animation and programming are much harder to fully automate, at least for now.
Games have had automation in varying degrees for years. Games rely heavily on “AI” programs that control enemies, environments, and non-player characters. But that’s not how AI is being discussed today. In 2024, we’ll be talking about generative AI generated by large language models (LLMs) and related systems unleashed by the recent craze.
A recent report by consulting firm CVL Economics, commissioned by an entertainment industry trade group, found that the gaming industry has more tasks handed over to generative AI than the TV, film, and music industries, and a survey of 300 CEOs, executives, and managers found that nearly 90% of video game companies had already implemented generative AI programs.
According to CVL’s research, the gaming industry “relies more on GenAI than other entertainment industries to perform tasks such as storyboarding, character design, rendering, and animation generation. In fact, by one estimate, GenAI could contribute to more than half of the game development process in the next five to 10 years.”
This may be new to some game industry insiders. They often don’t have the full picture of what goes on at a major game company like Activision Blizzard, which is made up of a complex supply chain of studios, developers, third-party contributors, and quality assurance (QA) testers. A studio might be a subsidiary of a larger studio tasked with developing or co-developing a single game for the parent company. “It’s pretty fragmented in AAA, so you don’t know who’s doing what,” Violet says. “You’ll probably never know which parts are using AI for what, but you know it’s there.” (Activision Blizzard did not respond to a request for comment.)
The lack of clarity about when and where AI may be used in a particular game also seems to ease concerns about piracy. “It’s a lawless area,” Violet says. “I’ve been in meetings with different companies, and before they go ahead with AI, they’re saying, to some extent, ‘we need to make sure this is legal.'”
