*Geoff Keighley voice* GAMING!
This report is going to talk about the near-omnipresence of AI during the Pocket Gamer Connects Nordics event and the most recent Steam Next Fest.
My expectations for the conference in Helsinki were that it was going to be an industry-focused event but it would make for a good opportunity to make some connections for the future. Those expectations were met as there were certainly a lot of game-development-focused talks, and there was a dedicated section for posting CVs and job openings. What I did not expect, however, was the sheer amount of AI and especially pro-AI talk. Every talk during the event was either twenty or forty minutes long, and the topic of AI was brought up in almost every single one I attended.
On the one hand, it should not be a surprise, as AI is very topical, and, for better or worse, it has become a large part of not just game development, but also most people’s lives as a whole. On the other hand, and this is perhaps a lack of knowledge on my part, it was incredibly surprising to me how open most speakers were about their use of AI for development. Praising improvements in efficiency and accuracy, speakers were also adamant about AI’s status as a tool. “Why are we getting angry at a hammer?” is a phrase that was uttered by a marketing director of a mobile game company in order to defend its use, emphasising the fact that AI is simply a tool at their disposal and there is no reason to begrudge its use. The CEO of a not-for-profit organisation present at the same talk fired back with “You can make slop if you want to,” referring to the commonly used term AI slop for games that are made with the help of generative AI. The same speaker followed up with details about how whilst AI itself may be just a tool, its efficiency was achieved by stealing other people’s work and using it without giving them any credit. They then elaborated with a metaphor about how indie devs are being sold a woodcutting tool (AI), but the tool was made by cutting trees from the indies’ own forest. Whilst the tool may be more efficient at cutting wood, the fact that its creation was completed by stealing wood belonging to others makes the issue of using it a moral one. It was reassuring to see a developer fighting back and bringing up the ethical connotations of AI use instead of taking the easy way out and accepting it without considering what its use actually entails in terms of ethics, resource issues, and job opportunities.
In other AI-related news, the recent Steam Next Fest was flooded with games that employed its use. Out of around 8000 demos, 1700 have disclosed AI use. That is roughly 20% of demos. Mind you, that is only the games that have disclosed AI use (as is Steam policy) for art and assets. The figure does not count games that haven’t disclosed AI use and neither does it include games that have used AI for coding or mostly coding purposes. This makes it a lot more difficult to get an accurate percentage of the number of games utilising generative AI. Moreover, it makes it problematic for hard-working developers foregoing its use to stand out and get eyes on their demos, which is what the Next Fest is supposed to be all about. The demand for Steam to include a “No-AI’ filter has never been higher.
The situation is bad enough that there are indie devs worried about making their demo publicly available, fearing that someone could simply replicate the gameplay and presentation using AI and release it before the original game is ready. This is precisely the case with Alliance Arts’ Drunken Goddess Reflux, whose public demo was meant to become available on the 19th of October. Instead, Alliance Arts decided to “hold closed online play sessions for a limited number of participants.” This obviously limits the amount of reach and feedback the game is going to receive, but the fear of having your game stolen from you with AI is so pervasive that fewer playtesters are a worthy tradeoff to avoid that risk.
I wish I could end this by saying that things will get better, that the AI craze will pass and that hardworking game devs will get the recognition they deserve. Unfortunately, AI seems to be getting more and more prominent in both the AAA and indie scenes. I can, however, say that there are still developers out there who care less about making more money than they need, and more about making the best game they can. Here’s hoping they stay strong!
