imagine baldur's gate 3Except that millions of dialogue lines and outcomes are generated by AI with the help of humans. Google's cloud division is exploring the idea of living games, where video games respond to player input in the moment and can spin off in myriad directions that even game developers may not be able to fully foresee.
Jack Basser, Google Cloud's Director of Games is working hard to make that vision a reality.
“Let's say you're creating an avatar, or you go to a shop in a medieval town. You like that sword, but you want it to be purple and have a big diamond on the handle,” says Bazaar. he says. reciprocal. “Even if a human never created that asset, it could still be generated. The game itself might say, 'Well, if you want it, we'll do it for you.' .”
“This opportunity far outweighs any kind of criticism we're seeing.”
While this may sound harmless or even cool, AI could disrupt an already volatile job market by replacing human video game developers or reducing them to “ready-to-read engineers.” there is. This is a dystopian vision of the game that not all developers can support. But Buser, formerly of Google Stadia and PlayStation, believes AI has the potential to be the most exciting thing to happen to the industry in years.
“If all we were doing was creating higher and higher fidelity graphics, people would get bored,” he says. “They need new types of gameplay styles, and they need things that surprise and delight like nothing they've seen before. There hasn't been anything like this in quite some time.”
Buser acknowledged that his team collaborates with Google's team on Bard and AI research, which he described as “all the time.”
Buser admits that his team works with Google's Bard and AI departments “all the time,” and likens AI to the advent of CD-ROMs or three-dimensional graphics. “Soon, games themselves will be able to respond to player needs instantly, without any human involvement. Games will know what the player wants and create it on the fly. We're already seeing some early signs of that.”
we are not there yet. Several tech companies are working on AI-powered non-playable characters for video games – bots that human players can chat with endlessly without having to cycle through the same few interaction options. The generative AI tech demos I've tried still require a lot of human input upfront, and the final product doesn't really work without humans. His Nvidia example I saw in March required a human team to create these profiles for his NPCs, similar to the role his engineers play in his ChatGPT. In its current form, AI still relies heavily on humans.
According to a Game Developers Conference survey, nearly one-third of more than 3,000 game developers say they already use AI in their work. Narrative designers were less likely to use technology than business and marketing employees.
AI companies also face ongoing lawsuits from media companies, artists and others alleging copyright infringement.
“Of course there are arguments,” Bazaar said. “This opportunity far outweighs any kind of criticism we're seeing.”
Again, this isn't the first time Google has tried cutting-edge technology with mixed results.
The (rapid) rise and fall of Google Stadia
“It's a shame that it still doesn't exist.”
Future Publishing/Getty Images
Buser was the 10th employee hired to work at Google Stadia. Google Stadia is the company's failed attempt at a video game streaming platform with first-party hardware and exclusive titles. (He previously worked for his eight years at PlayStation, focusing on subscriptions.)
““In the early days, we got our first games up and running on platforms that were held together with masking tape and Elmer's glue,” says Buser. “It's a shame that it still doesn't exist.”
Buser leads gaming at Google's cloud division, which includes the ill-fated Google Stadia project.
Jack Basser/Nectar PR
Buser said the lesson Google learned from developing Stadia is that it's better not to compete with established console makers. The market share percentage of Sony, Nintendo, and Xbox he has remained relatively stable in 2022 and 2021, controlling almost 100% of the console market, leaving little room for rivals to increase.
“With Stadia, we now have a platform that can compete with other gaming platforms. We're like, 'What are we doing there?'” Buser said, mimicking his reaction.
But while Google Cloud's current gaming ambitions may feel diminished, the company has the potential to transform not just its own little corner of the company, but the entire industry.
If you can't beat them, join them.
Changing existing consumer habits is difficult, but Google is aiming to do what people are already accustomed to: playing popular live games on large servers supported in the cloud. is.
SOPA Images/Light Rocket/Getty Images
Growth in the video game business has slowed since 2020, when there was significant growth as people stayed at home. Last year, his five established games — Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends, Minecraft, and GTA V — accounted for 27 percent of all playing time last year.
Changing existing consumer habits is difficult, but Google is aiming to do what people are already comfortable doing: playing popular live games on large servers supported by the cloud.
He points out that the video game industry is engineering-focused and can be inefficient. Developers often build their own tools from scratch. “The game development community has long been famous for reinventing the wheel.”
“We perform best when we help developers and platforms do their jobs.”
This approach may fail. Similar to a few years ago when EA's game engine Frostbite was reportedly plagued with issues that contributed to the big-budget shooter. national anthem Eventually it will be canned.
This is exactly where Google wants to fit. The company's cloud services will allow other developers to create online games (possibly with powerful AI capabilities) without investing in their own infrastructure. As an added bonus, if the servers go down, gamers will blame Google, not the video game studios.
After Google and Jack Buser were unable to break into gaming console manufacturing on their own terms, they realized how they could best serve the industry.
“We perform best when we help developers and platforms do their jobs,” says Buser. “So instead of trying to compete with them, we enable them. We give them the keys to the castle and let them do whatever they want. That's where we really shine in the gaming industry. is.”
