How does the computer game industry rely on artificial intelligence?

Andrew Maximoff has been in the gaming industry for 12 years, but even with all that experience, he’s still surprised by how much money goes into developing the biggest games.

“I used to work at PlayStation and the last game I worked on cost us $220 to produce alone [£176m]”Then if you double that for marketing, you’re getting half a billion dollars for each game, which is pretty sustainable for most companies.”

He believes artificial intelligence (AI) will play an important role in reducing the high production costs of games and automating repetitive tasks to save valuable time for video game developers.

His company Promethean offers a variety of tools for AI developers to design their virtual worlds. Maximov hopes to change the way games are currently produced.

“We’re trying to replace that with a system that can learn directly from artists, so artists can author their own automation.”

People will continue to play an important role in the production process. AI will work with humans and enable them to be more creative.

“We can create a vision for the game and then the artist can click a button and the AI ​​will respond to them. “He then gets examples from his library of concept drawings and digital concepts relevant to his project,” says Maximov

Sometimes AI has amazing ideas.

“I remember one time we tried to build a police station and we asked the AI ​​to fill it and when it came back there was a donut on every desk.

“Another time we were building an apartment and he left a sock under the coffee table. “We wondered if it was a mistake, but it turns out we described it as a bachelor pad, so I guess it made sense,” he says.

California software company Inworld uses artificial intelligence to create computer game components.

An engine has been created that allows developers to add realism to game worlds and emotional depth to characters. The company is also working on a so-called Narrative Graph, developed in collaboration with Xbox, which will use artificial intelligence to create stories.

CEO Kellan Gibbs told the BBC he believes AI will allow developers to “dream bigger than ever before.”

“The engine allows developers to add AI agents that can see, sense and perceive the world around them, as well as be able to interact with players and perform actions in the game. If you can give virtual characters advanced cognitive abilities, it opens up a whole new world of storytelling and gameplay,” he says.

Nick Walton is the CEO of gaming company Latitude.io and believes AI has the power to personalize the gaming experience.

“We’re just getting started with the AI, and as we move forward we’ll see very dynamic, adaptable worlds where characters feel alive, where you as a hero do unique things and have a very unique impact on the world. “

“You can play a game where you find a town that nobody cares about and that no other player has spent time in, and you can really invest in it and develop relationships with all its characters,” he told the BBC. he told the BBC. .

His company developed AI Dungeon, a game that allows players to choose from different worlds and create their own story within them.

“It’s a lot like those old text adventures where you write an action and then the game decides what happens next.

“But the key difference is that instead of imagining everything a developer might do, AI can dynamically decide what to do next. So any move is possible.”

He said he was surprised by the success of the dungeon game, the first version of which was released in 2019.

“It started as a side project that I put online, and within a week 100,000 people were playing it,” he says.

“I think there’s a lot of replayability because the story is different every time and you can develop it in any direction. And there’s this ability to make real decisions, which has always been the goal of many games.”