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For years, the gaming industry seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut, with revenues rising to stratospheric heights on the backs of ever-more-immersive titles and the explosion of mobile gaming. However, as we enter the mid-2020s, there are growing signs that the industry is reaching a plateau. After the pandemic-fueled boom of 2020 and 2021, global gaming revenues dipped in 2022. That contraction gave way to tepid growth of just 0.5% in 2023, bringing the worldwide gaming market to around $184 billion, according to data from Newzoo. While still an impressive figure, it’s a far cry from the double-digit percentage growth the
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Genie, a generative model, can function as an interactive environment, accepting various prompts such as generated images or hand-drawn sketches. Users can guide the model’s output by providing latent actions at each time step, which Genie then uses to generate the next frame in the sequence. Source: DeepMind via ArXiv (open access).
Under the hood, these AI systems are powered by deep neural networks, which are becoming game engines unto themselves, capable of generating complete, playable experiences from scratch.
Essentially, the game world is created inside the AI system itself, not through traditional programming techniques but by a deep neural network that has learned game design rules, patterns, and structures. Because the game world is generated by a neural network, it has the potential to be far more dynamic and responsive than traditional game environments.
The same network that generates the world itself could also be used to simulate NPC behaviors, adjust difficulty on the fly, or even reshape the environment in real-time based on player actions.
With AI handling the heavy lifting of world-building and level design, the optimistic narrative is that developers will be free to focus on higher-level creative decisions, such as creating art, concepts, and storylines.
While jobs would be placed at risk, AI will surely be the major level-up the gaming industry is looking for.
Empowering players, disrupting business models
The real revolution will kickstart when these AI tools are placed directly in the hands of players.
Imagine a world where gamers can conjure up titles with a few simple prompts, then jump in and start playing instantly.
Want to mash-up the neon-soaked cityscape of Cyberpunk 2077 with the frenetic combat of DOOM Eternal? Just describe it to the AI and watch your idea come to life.
This is a vision for the next couple of decades, but in the nearer term, AI will make it possible for players to create and customize simpler games according to their unique preferences.
For example, a player could use an AI tool to create a platformer game where they define the main character’s abilities, the types of enemies they face, and the style of the environments they traverse. Or they could create a puzzle game where they set the difficulty curve, the visual theme, and even the types of puzzles encountered.
Instead of being limited to the creative direction of professional game designers, the industry could be shaped by the collective creative input of millions of players.
Moreover, as AI game creation tools become more sophisticated, they could enable a new generation of “prosumer” game creators players who blur the line between consumer and creator.
This bottom-up, democratized approach to game creation could fundamentally shift the power dynamics within the gaming industry. Instead of a top-down model where a handful of large studios dictate the kind of games that get made, we could see the emergence of a more diverse, player-centric gaming ecosystem.
Platforms that provide AI tools for creation and curation will facilitate the technical side, taking a cut of user-generated content sales or charging for access to premium features.
Of course, realizing this vision for the industry won’t be without immense challenges. Issues of content moderation, intellectual property rights, job displacement, and revenue sharing will all need to be confronted.
However, the wheels are in motion. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more and more examples of AI not just assisting in game development, but fundamentally reshaping what games can be.
The post The gaming industry is facing a midlife crisis is AI its future? appeared first on DailyAI.
Published: 2024-10-11T18:20:08
