The recent hype over AI-assisted tools has brought with it the reality that not everything needs to be done by hand anymore. Generative AI technology can be an incredible boon to any aspiring developer, and that technology is here to stay. Things like AI art generators and language processing tools are just far too popular to disappear overnight, and their use, far too convenient to really ignore.

But just why is AI so popular? How can such AI technology positively influence game development? And are the advantages they offer really worth diving into?

Endless possibilities waiting to be tapped into

The benefits these new technologies present are that they’re cheap and accessible. Generative AI works even with simple instructions. Whether it’s writing thousands of paragraphs or producing dozens of art pieces, it doesn't matter. It’ll create hours of content within minutes of a button press. 

This content isn’t without flaws, but its near-limitless scope gives it an endless array of possibilities with which it can accommodate your ideas. Stories, textures, artworks, and more are all within reach of a button press, giving it an innate accessibility that even newcomers and non-artists can harness.

Just take a look at one of Skyrim’s follower mods.

Image courtesy of the website Nexus Mods via the Hello Herika mod page

Hello Herika is a popular Skyrim mod that runs on Chat GPT. It inserts a brand new original character into the world of Skyrim as a recruitable companion to bring along in your adventures. While these types of mods aren’t new, Hello Herika’s isn’t like the other girls or boys you’ll meet in the base game. As she’s powered by AI, the programming she has access to allows her to be far more reactive to the world around her.

For example, Herika will routinely comment on things that happen close to her. She will constantly remark on how she feels and is able to answer in-game questions on her own. Herika reacts to quests, has her own battle dialogues and banter, frequently comments about the environment, and can even give her input during quests.

Image courtesy of the website Nexus Mods via the Hello Herika mod page

What’s more, Herika is even fully voiced by the use of AI, giving her a level of believability that other follower mods don’t have. And all this is free to download and try at your leisure.

If a free modder is able to accomplish this much using what tools he has, imagine how much more can be done in the hands of a dedicated game development team.

Time-saving and cost-saving

AI's benefits don’t just help extend a game’s scope, either. Proper use of AI can also help extend your limited budget. Things like plot, game textures, pacing, and character designs can be made through AI generation, allowing your developers extra time to focus on more important tasks like polishing gameplay mechanics and bug-fixing.

It might sound like an awful idea, but other games have executed the concept before. Just take a look at Shadows of Doubt.

Image courtesy of Fireshrine Games’ Shadows of Doubt via Steam

Shadows of Doubt is a stylized little detective game. The player's goal is to solve crime in an ever-changing world, and the game’s main gimmick is that the many crimes you solve are all procedurally generated. This means that the circumstances behind each crime will differ and are always unique, requiring some on-the-fly sleuthing to really solve each case. Moreover, because of the nature of procedural generation, there’s a limitless amount of content to explore, and no two scenarios will ever truly play out the same.

While the game lacks the personal charm of handcrafted scenarios, this procedural generation system gives the game a lot more staying power. It allows players to have far more game time at the same amount of development cost. If a simplistic procedural generation can already create an interesting game, just imagine how much more can be done if programmers are willing to dedicate more time and resources to learning new AI technologies.

A word of caution

While the benefits of AI can’t be denied, overreliance on AI systems for your games does come at a cost. While it gives developers far more flexibility in their projects, the issues behind these programs remain.

Some of it is because of technical concerns. Early Access Steam game Vaudeville was heavily criticized due to its prominent use of AI tech. This experimental little game didn’t just use AI voices in its gameplay. It also heavily relies on procedurally generated chat responses as part of its core gameplay loop.

Image courtesy of Bumblebee Studios’ Vaudeville via Steam

Its concept might seem sound, but things just aren’t fleshed out well enough. The characters you interview frequently lie to you because of the chat AI’s poor programming and entire conversations can loop and end up going nowhere due to the game misinterpreting your questions. Good use of AI is supposed to feel dynamic and immersive. In Vaudeville, the game’s stilted AI voices sound too robotic, and its story too nonsensical and rambling to feel like anything but the creation of a few hurried prompts on Chat GPT. Vaudeville currently sits with a mostly deserved negative rating.

These don’t just stop at mechanical issues as well. First-person shooter game The Finals came under fire for more ethical issues when its slow, stunted dialogue was guessed to be the work of an AI. Voice actor Gianni Matragrano notes that AI voice-overs cross boundaries about bodily autonomy and also sound terrible compared to hiring and using professional voice actors. In an old tweet, he noted that other companies had used his voice through AI programs before, and none of it with his consent or even credit attributed to him.

Image courtesy of user Gianni Matragrano via Twitter

Many other AI criticisms fall under the same umbrella. At the end of the day, these learning AI programs are usually trained off of other artists’ work and person, raising questions about originality and plagiarism that current laws haven’t caught up to yet.

AI can be a great tool for the talented developer, but its true potential still remains to be seen. The technology is present but still primitive, and its use is mired in gray areas and ethical concerns that are here to stay for some time. While AI definitely has potential, I fear it’s an issue that won’t be solved any time soon.

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This article was written by Alexander Cuaycong.