Summary
The games industry is a mess right now. The number of hard-working developers being laid off by billion-dollar corporations is rising exponentially. While the industry is being carried by independent titles, those small companies aren’t immune to cuts and closures, either. And, to make matters worse, the industry’s biggest players likeNaughty Dog,Blizzard,Ubisoft, andSquare Enixare all embracing generative AI in the development of their games.
We all know by now that there aretwo types of AI in video games. There’s the Good AI, which controls your enemies and makes them react almost like real people, and the Bad AI, which plagiarises artwork by scraping the entire internet for ‘inspiration’ that it then mashes together to make a bland, soulless, creatively barren piece of digital ‘art’.
If you want to try to argue the benefits of generative AI in the comments, be my guest. I don’t read them. But know that I think you’re a complete and utter weapon. Generative AI is a tool thatruins the environmentandcontributes to the precarity of jobsfor skilled workers in order to satisfy the generic cravings of artistically bereft executives.
There are ways to use generative AI in an artistic and ethical manner,like Stellaris has done. However, everybody else is just using it as an excuse to cut costs and sell worse products for more profit.
Between job cuts and expressionless art, the future of the games industry may look bleak. ButNintendois here to save the day once again! In a recentshareholder Q&A(good spot,TweakTown), Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa answered questions about the use of generative AI in game development, and his response was admirable.
“In the game industry, AI-like technology has long been used to control enemy character movements, so game development and AI technology have always been closely related,” he explained, focusing first on the Good AI. “Generative AI, which has been a hot topic in recent years, can be more creative, but we also recognize that it has issues with intellectual property rights. We have decades of know-how in creating optimal gaming experiences for our customers, and while we remain flexible in responding to technological developments, we hope to continue to deliver value that is unique to us and cannot be achieved through technology alone.”
There’s a lot to unpack in this short statement, but the TL;DR is: Nintendo isn’t using generative AI, and has no plans to at present. But it’s thewhyNintendo isn’t using generative AI that’s more interesting.
Firstly, Furukawa acknowledges the issue with intellectual property rights. This is something that many other companies haven’t even acknowledged, although it will have been talked about behind closed doors, and it seems likely they won’t acknowledge it until stricter laws are in place.
However, it’s the last sentence that I like the most. “We hope to continue to deliver value that is unique to us and cannot be achieved through technology alone.” Value that isunique to us. Furukawa knows that the only thing that makes Nintendo games good is its passionate employees. That’s the same for any studio across the world, of course, but many seem to be forgetting that.
Nintendo makes its magic thanks to the hard work of thousands of developers eking every drop of creative juice out of each of their brains. The same happens at Naughty Dog, Ubisoft, and Square Enix. But Nintendorespects its employees, or at least, that’s how it looks from the outside. It certainly respects their artistry, their creativity. The stuff that makes them human, the little touches that fans notice in their games that make a moustachioed plumber relatable to everyone from a young girl to an octogenarian grandfather.
Other companies need to follow in Nintendo’s footsteps, eschewing the destructive and unartistic trend of ploughing resources into cheap AI to replace the natural creativity of its people. I want to see a games industry that’s environmentally and artistically ethical. I want to see a games industry where individual talent is fostered and spotlighted. I want more companies like Nintendo.
