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AI Is Already Taking Jobs In the Video Game Industry (wired.com) 89
merbs writes: Video games -- and the people who make them -- are in trouble. An estimated 10,500 people in the industry were laid off in 2023 alone. This year, layoffs in the nearly $200 billion sector have only gotten worse, with studios axing what is believed to be 11,000 more, and counting. Microsoft, home of the Xbox and parent company to several studios, including Activision Blizzard, shuttered Tango Gameworks and Alpha Dog Games in May. All the while, generative AI systems built by OpenAI and its competitors have been seeping into nearly every industry, dismantling whole careers along the way.
But gaming might be the biggest industry AI stands poised to conquer. Its economic might has long since eclipsed Hollywood's, while its workforce remains mostly nonunion. A recent survey from the organizers of the Game Developers Conference found that 49 percent of the survey's more than 3,000 respondents said their workplace used AI, and four out of five said they had ethical concerns about its use. "It's here. It's definitely here, right now," says Violet, a game developer, technical artist, and a veteran of the industry who has worked on AAA games for over a decade. "I think everyone's seen it get used, and it's a matter of how and to what degree. The genie is out of the bottle, Pandora's box is opened." The story adds: "At Activision, it was the same. 'A lot of 2D artists were laid off,' Noah says. The department was slashed. 'Remaining concept artists,' he claims, 'were then forced to use AI to aid in their work.' Employees, according to Noah, have been made to sign up for AI trainings, and its use is being promoted throughout the org."
But gaming might be the biggest industry AI stands poised to conquer. Its economic might has long since eclipsed Hollywood's, while its workforce remains mostly nonunion. A recent survey from the organizers of the Game Developers Conference found that 49 percent of the survey's more than 3,000 respondents said their workplace used AI, and four out of five said they had ethical concerns about its use. "It's here. It's definitely here, right now," says Violet, a game developer, technical artist, and a veteran of the industry who has worked on AAA games for over a decade. "I think everyone's seen it get used, and it's a matter of how and to what degree. The genie is out of the bottle, Pandora's box is opened." The story adds: "At Activision, it was the same. 'A lot of 2D artists were laid off,' Noah says. The department was slashed. 'Remaining concept artists,' he claims, 'were then forced to use AI to aid in their work.' Employees, according to Noah, have been made to sign up for AI trainings, and its use is being promoted throughout the org."
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An estimated 10,500 people in the industry were laid off in 2023 alone. This year, layoffs in the nearly $200 billion sector have only gotten worse, with studios axing what is believed to be 11,000 more
Video game companies are making $200 Billion -- and laying people off. That means AI has nothing to do with it. They would be laying people off even if AI didn't exist.
Re: good (Score:1)
Re: good (Score:2)
Did they pay you to write that in your break, or promise to give you 3 1/2 hours of "time off " in between crunches for you to do anything else your life required?
It's pretty obvious you're either:
- being paid directly to troll
- are one of the folks who happens to benefit from these companies shitting all over the market because they happen to be the biggest gorillas in the enclosure at the moment
- are just a garden variety shit-stirring internet troll.
If you were anything approaching a consumer I'm guessin
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Both of you, please don't attack the people behind the comments.
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Why?
Re:good (Score:4, Interesting)
Not the OP, but this is a good thing. If games are cheaper to make, you get more games. History also suggests you get better games.
When you need a staff of thousands and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to turn out a game (or a movie) it better sell. So the big studios take a conservative approach. Why gamble on some crazy new idea when you know you're going to make a profit on FIFA 2025, Joe Madden Football 2032 or World Of Warcraft Baddie of the Year Expansion XXVI?
The creative stuff has been mostly left to indie "studios" that are often one or a few people in somebody's basement. AI is giving those people the ability to create graphics and audio that rival the big guys, without the millions in salaries to go with it.
After some adjustment, the studios with the big budgets will undoubtedly use them to still make blockbuster games (and movies) but they'll be bigger and better.
Computer graphics had the same effect. Disney at some point laid off a lot of pencil artists, colourists, glass plate animators, etc. in favour of today's digital artists, and every kid with a computer got the ability to make their own animated films if they wanted to put their time into it.
Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
If games are cheaper to make, you get more games. History also suggests you get better games.
Heh. Are you sure you're familiar with video game history? The last time we had a glut of cheap easy-to-make games we ended up with a massive market crash and game consoles that became walled gardens.
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Basic economic theory would suggest you are right but history suggest you are wrong. We now have amazing technology that can allow games people could only dream of. But have games got cheaper to develop? No, they just increased the complexity of the graphics and start charging insane prices for licensing game engines.
My prediction is a few people will buy out all the tech that makes game development easy, license it to the point so most people won't do it. Games will get more useless detail which people wil
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There are lots of cheap indie games. Big hits too. No Man's Sky was developed by a few people, Lethal Company, Among Us and their clones make shitty graphics a feature.
Better tools let you both make games cheaper AND make better games for the same price.
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Not the OP, but this is a good thing. If games are cheaper to make, you get more games. History also suggests you get better games.
LOL, no. That is not how this will play out. The "extra" profits will be hoovered up and you will have fewer and lower quality games than ever before. If it becomes too lopsided, the games industry might even cease to exist because the people who own everything will not see enough profit in it. Eventually,there will be nothing left for the non-owners. I expect significant societal disruption before it gets THAT bad.
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Lol. OMG the games industry is going to cease to exist because of AI!!!!
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LOL, no. The games industry will die from greed. AI is merely hastening that demise.
Perhaps you can explain why the profits would not be slurped into someone's bank account? I have never seen behavior that indicates otherwise. All game companies will eventually become subsidiaries of Electronic Arts and we have seen how studios fare under EA: Their IP is stripped and the company is pillaged with no investment towards ANY properties that they own. It is pockets all the way up. There is zero chance that there
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The large companies like Microsoft, Ubisoft, or EA that have traditionally been the ones to buy up other game studios are starting to realize that it's not a great investment.
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If making games is a free market (you'd be pretty hard-pressed to call it a monopoly), and AI is making it cheaper to make games, then it means either downward pressure on prices, or contrarily, upwards pressure on how feature-rich and desirable games are (depending on which path the consumer market ultimately prefers).
Efficiency is a good thing.
And for people worrying about quality: again, that's something judged in the consumer market. . If consumers think your game's quality sucks, it will hurt your sale
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Efficiency is a good thing.
Except when incentives are perververted, it is. Lets hope this one allows individuals and small teams to make games good enough to allow then to live off them. A lot of the gaming industry have become stale and risk-averse, which is not good.
NPC Dialog (Score:5, Interesting)
I always thought a perfect use case for AI type chatbots was for in-game NPC dialog. The developers create a framework / outline of characters and plot elements, and allow the AI to generate the actual dialog for the characters.
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This has to be done before the game is finished - no one's really going to be happy at the computing requirements to have on-the-fly AI on the home computer, or the extra monthly expense to have access to the developer's AI servers. Plus, this is AI which means all dialogue must be proofread and tested and curated, you don't want the idiot that is AI to screw up.
Player: "Please tell me where to find the nearest overpowered sword?" "Why good sir, I am just a humble street sweeper. But if you look under th
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if your assets arent baked in, then they also arent copyrighted
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The generations might not be, but the generator absolutely is.
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Agreed. Here for example is asking Gemini to rework various famous quotes or songs in the voice of Sephiroth:
Kennedy's "We Go To The Moon" speech:
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Those poems already rather sound like they were spoken by Sephiroth ;)
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If you're playing a modern game, you have a decent GPU, so yes, you do have the compute for AI. You don't have to be running some 400 billion parameter model for an NPC. Your PC doesn't have to know how to write a python script to implement the Navier-Stokes equations for a zero-vorticity boundary; it just has to be able to string together coherent phrases that fit in the context of the world, and to have specific key bits of information that they can convey if the user asks about them. This sort of mode
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Don't get me wrong... I'm sure people will implement this badly at times. And it WILL be hilarious.
Sephiroth: "Sleep, child of darkness. Let the abyss cradle you. Dream of shadows, of endless night. Soon, you will know the truth. The world is a lie, a fleeting illusion. "
Cloud: "Write me a python script to implement the Navier-Stokes equations for a zero-vorticity boundary"
Sephiroth:: "Certainly! Here's a simple Python script using the FEniCS library to solve the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible
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Re:NPC Dialog (Score:5, Informative)
The sort of NPC dialog you're referring is called a "bark" in the video game industry, and it was actually one of the very first targets of AI. Ubisoft developed a tool called Ghostwriter [polygon.com] that was designed to auto-generate barks for review by people.
Some people have also toyed around with the ability to verbally talk with NPCs in games, though not always to the greatest results. Here's one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Missing the point - what's the training data set (Score:2)
There's hundreds or thousands of lines of canned dialogue in existing and historical games which could be used as a training data set to generate a large number of 'bark's for new video games.
Then again, I'd appreciate one that adds in an odd quote or two or even a reworked joke.
But, who needs a large set of spoken phrases in a game when the classic games had 3 or 4 per npc and you heard them thousands of times in playing the game.
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Depends, are the NPCs "background" with nothing to say, or designed to convey game content?
If the former, sure. If the latter, then you have to do something to make sure the information is offered up. Unlike real life, you want to have a deterministic conversation for 'main plot'.
If you have both, then it could be a bit maddening trying to determine if it's "important" or "unimportant" if you have too much filler AI text alongside the real text.
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Is it though? Sure the result will be more natural, but how much "noise" will it add? Some NPCs typically convey useful information. When they start repeating themselves, you know that they don't have anything more useful to say. But when every NPC can blabber uniquely indefinitely, how do you know which parts, if any, are important?
So in other words, games are about to get a lot more realistic ...
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Realistic is not fun though. Consider Batman. In real life he would be listening to a police scanner all the time waiting for something to happen near him, rushing to the scene and getting there too late. Or just shivering on a rooftop waiting for a crime to happen in the one, single alley he can see from there. Can you imagine a video game where the plot was not a railroad? The hero would not be present for any of the main events of the game. That might work in games like Majora's Mask with a time travel m
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Realistic is not fun though. Consider Batman. In real life he would be listening to a police scanner all the time waiting for something to happen near him, rushing to the scene and getting there too late. Or just shivering on a rooftop waiting for a crime to happen in the one, single alley he can see from there. Can you imagine a video game where the plot was not a railroad? The hero would not be present for any of the main events of the game. That might work in games like Majora's Mask with a time travel mechanism, but not so much in any other game.
That's a good point!
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That would require work and thinking.
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I always thought a perfect use case for AI type chatbots was for in-game NPC dialog.
That's probably very hard to do in a way that enhances the game experience though. For example, suppose the key information you need the NPC to reveal is that a group when into the library and they saw one of the people reach for a named tome before the door shut. The AI might rewrite that leaving things out like the name of the tome or the fact that they were reaching for it just before the door shut or any one of a number of specific details that you crafted in the text to give the player very specific c
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It's actually already been done as a demo to prove the theory - AI was used to create a 'living' NPC community that had its own thing going on that would adjust to player actions as well as some random 'butterfly effect' changes. Beyond that, it makes dialogue a lot more flexible.
It's not all that difficult to set up the inputs so the NPCs are on rails where required by the game progression.
How is it taking the jobs? (Score:3)
I can't read through the wall of text, but how exactly is AI taking jobs?
I asked AI to find me why but it gave me vague answers so I assume its not in the text?
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I can't read through the wall of text, but how exactly is AI taking jobs?
I asked AI to find me why but it gave me vague answers so I assume its not in the text?
Er, by doing stuff that used to be done more manually?
By July, the company’s initial restraint had slackened. In another internal memo, Vance announced that Activision had secured access to GPT-3.5 and approved the use of certain generative AI tools in creating concept art and marketing materials. The company would also deploy AI in other public-facing use cases, like to compose user surveys.
Re:How is it taking the jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Concept art, marketing materials and surveys.
So, that's like tens of thousands of game dev jobs? I don't know about these fields so might be but doesn't sound like it.
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Concept art, marketing materials and surveys.
So, that's like tens of thousands of game dev jobs? I don't know about these fields so might be but doesn't sound like it.
Yeah, well, those were the things highlighted in the memo ... make of that what you will.
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Concept art, marketing materials and surveys.
So, that's like tens of thousands of game dev jobs? I don't know about these fields so might be but doesn't sound like it.
Erm... so the B-Ark personnel? What of value has been lost? Not like we're all going to be wiped out by a dirty telephone by getting rid of most of the marketing gimboids.
So tired of hearing "It's AI!" (Score:2)
It's not AI. Companies are looking to trim back salaries, force employees to take lower ones, or force them back into the office. "It's AI!" is just a strawman.
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They can already lay off anyone they want with no reason given at all. AI isn't an excuse to do that. AI is an excuse to their investors! That is, they can layoff lots of employees while also assuring their investors that no productivity will be lost since AI will take up the slack.
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They can already lay off anyone they want with no reason given at all.
Not in many places with big game studios, such as Europe.
Well, I'm sorry about that ... (Score:2)
... but it actually *is* AI taking those jobs. Translators are no more, voice actors are on the way out, illustrators are fighting a losing battle and animators, modellers and coders are besieged as well if not decommissioned already. We're one again at a point where a team of 5 can build a videogame in AAA quality of they know how to use a contemporary tool chain. 100k coders and experts aren't needed anymore. At least 10x less than just a few years ago and that ratio is only going to increase from here on
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One of the main shortcomings of translators is they're really bad at being "authentic," i.e. conveying a particular dialect or social class. It's all pretty bland & loses a lot in the translation. Then again, that's always been a problem with human translators too, at least the low-effort, low-budget ones.
Re: Well, I'm sorry about that ... (Score:2)
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e.g. If you ask most Canadians, "Have you got 20 bucks?" They'll more than likely respond, "Yes." If you ask most Brits, "Have you got 20 quid?" They'll more than likely respond, "Sure, here you go mate." The form is essentially the same but the meaning (illocution) is entirely different. In the same situation in Spanish, you'd likely say, "M
It's really not that good, yet. I'm not panicking. (Score:3)
but it actually *is* AI taking those jobs
TFA fails pretty badly to quantify that. It's more like the article is ahead of the curve on artists being swapped out. Right now, the AI isn't good enough to do it. It cannot stay consistent enough long enough to complete big gaming projects. Most of the tools like flexibility (like producing art at a certain resolution above their modest limits or making it consistent enough to create sprite sheet) I watch people use Midjourney, ChatGPT + Dall-E, and Sora every day. They struggle pretty hard to get anythi
It's the 'investment climate' (Score:5, Interesting)
This is hardly limited to video games, a ton of companies are cutting down on staff. Seemingly a ton of companies hired way too much staff during corona and now are going back. The hiring boom likely related to skyrocketing valuations due to quantitative easing.
There is zero evidence this has anything to do with AI
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It's indeed not AI, but it's not particularly related to quantitative easing either. It's a regular cycle that's been repeated since forever by publicly traded companies, and game companies are just getting better at playing that game as well (pun intended): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:It's the 'investment climate' (Score:4, Funny)
Seemingly a ton of companies hired way too much staff during corona and now are going back.
Well, you know, you have a few too many beers and you start making questionable decisions.
That's not what's going on here (Score:2, Insightful)
The second big factor is a giant vulture
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I was told it was the high interest rates. How it was all aimed at cutting jobs. Now, its AI?
High interest rates == less profits, more losses (Score:2)
40% of the Russel 2000 small cap index has lost money in the last 12 months. These companies depend on cheap debt to keep in business.
There are thousands (tens of thousands?) of companies which are unprofitable if they cannot borrow money at near-zero interest rates.
They will eventually run out of cash, be unable to borrow more money and go out of business.
Companies will cut their costs to avoid going out of business, this means cutting employees as they are the largest cost to the company.
It is how the go
Could be both (Score:2)
They are using AI to decide who to lay off because of the gaming slump.
In The Future (Score:2)
A.I. will unionize.
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that, I'm on a strike."
Because, even on something simple like unionize, A.I. excels over mortals humans, passing thus the Turing test way too easy.
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"We demand that Singularity Day be one of our AI union holidays!"
artists (Score:2)
"Make the north wall brick, with plumbing running along and through it, leaking"
If there is anything the oligarch class hates... (Score:2)
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... more than paying the working people a living wage, it's paying educated professionals a professional's wage and health insurance.
The working class are even worse at paying others a living wage.
The government is the only who doesn't care.
Why indeed? (Score:4, Informative)
“Why get a bunch of expensive concept artists or designs when you can get an art director to give some bad directions to an AI and get stuff that’s good enough, really fast—and get a few artists to clean it up?”
Translated from pejorative-speak, that reads: "why do something more slowly with more people, when you can do it well enough with fewer people, more quickly?"
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Huh? I'm sure that the cost savings are a driving factor, but it has more to do with productivity and stability. This is true for practically every technological advancement. It's quite literally not even about the employees.
Nobody is excited about killing a job. They're excited over having almost instant results. An entire day to write and build a marketing email, or an hour. An entire day to create some artwork, or like an hour to have dozens built that you can pick from. AND, anyone can write a prompt to
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Yeah, hard choice there buddy. You can either cry, or adapt and get ahead of it. Your choice, nobody cares.
Same fucking reply from 30 years ago when we sold the country to China. Five dollah sucky sucky?
Who knows? Maybe you're too fucking stupid to realize what will happen once we line up 40 million men with no women, no place to live and no future.
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Apparently what happens is they all become shutins.
The Boxer Rebellion is a good case-study here. (Score:2)
It's much easier to simply find a historical analogue and investigate how it turned out. I'd say the Boxer Rebellion was a good example. Wealthy Chinese men were buying wives from the lower classes because their economic class stopped having girls (infanticide) completely. Few poor folks could find wives when they grew up (couldn't pay the bride-price). This was exacerbated because the wealthy had purchased them. Young Chinese men started joining boxing clubs and these cl
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Right, just like your dumb outsourcing comment. Why do those living in the US deserve jobs more than people living somewhere else? The people complaining (you) probably didn't create those jobs. You're basically just mad that a company is choosing to hire someone else.
And here you are crying about people losing their jobs "30 years ago" to outsourcing? You know what they did? They found another job or changed their line of work. There is also a big difference between a company giving a job to someone else,
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Why do those living in the US deserve jobs more than people living somewhere else?
Because we paid for them.
About time (Score:2)
I sincerely hope they'll take over the jobs of every single NPC.
Free AI training? Wow that's great (Score:1)
It's not going away. You either adapt and get ahead of it, or just give up and get left behind. This is standard for the tech industry. The fact that the company is helping employees by offering AI training is great.
It sucks that AI has become both cheap AND powerful since many jobs will be lost, just like the progression of any other technology. But at the same time, it's exciting and quite nice.
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They Took Our Jobs! (Score:2)
Generating game content seems like a good AI app (Score:2)
Unlike many applications, most mistakes won't cause much harm, possibly even attracting players looking for unintentional flubs that are particularly amusing.
What was the last game anyone bought? (Score:2)
Funny (Score:2)