EA's head honcho, Andrew Wilson, sounds extremely excited about the potential of generative AI tools. Speaking in a Q&A session following its latest financial briefing (thanks, VGC), the Aussie CEO responded to a question about how the publisher is planning to utilise AI in the future, and he thinks it'll have a profound impact on game development.
Wilson uses EA Sports FC as an example of how the company is already taking advantage of AI to help build its games. One example of how AI aids development of the football sim is the time it takes to build stadiums; Wilson says the team has cut this time down "from six months to six weeks", and he expects that "to shrink over time".
Giving another example of the benefits of AI, he says FIFA 23 featured 32 run cycles for all its characters. In EA Sports FC 24, Wilson says it uses "1,200 run cycles", which "adds to the individuality and uniqueness of each player, and delivers our players more immersion in the game, a more engaging experience that is more true to what they watch on television on a Sunday afternoon".
He says that bringing AI into its game development is a matter of "how can it make us more efficient, how can it give our developers more power, how can it give them back more time and allow them to get to the fun more quickly". Wilson says, after a thorough analysis, it expects that AI will make a positive impact on "more than 50%" of its development processes.
Apparently, "there is a real hunger amongst our developers to get to this as quickly as possible", because making development more efficient will enable studios to "build bigger, more innovative, more creative, more fun games more quickly".
We've seen a fair few publishers and higher-ups share a similar sentiment about generative AI. While there's a lot of uncertainty around it, given that there are concerns it'll replace artists, writers, and other creatives, the reality seems to be that it will be implemented in smart ways to ease pressure on developers, or make certain processes more efficient. Sony's Shuhei Yoshida said as much last year, for example.
What do you think of all this? Discuss in the comments section below.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 43
And by “more efficient” he means he’s the only employee left to collect all the profits while the AI does all the work.😝
A real hunger among shareholders he means. How many can devs can we lay off if we replace them by AI, is surely what they're all thinking.
Who can CEOs and Shareholders fire when there are no employees left to blame?
Well with the way it's going only AI will be able to make the games.
Translation, we like to pay our staff less for the same quality of games.
They can't convince me that this benefits the developers nor the players. Will only fatten the pockets of the hire ups and share holders.
He's right in that AI can and most likely will be used as a tool to improve game development efficiency. There's a lot of work that can be streamlined by using AI, especially in the concept stage.
However, it's hard not to be cynical. These publishers are already happy to close entire studios full of talented people. If they can gradually replace those people with AI, they absolutely will.
Bottom line is AI could be a game-changing tool for the industry. But there's no doubt it'll be abused by the suits, if they're given the opportunity.
Hopefully he means we’ll get more games as opposed to people being laid off.
Having said that maybe that’s why there lots of studio closures atm?
It's crazy to wonder how far ai will go. If it reaches the point where someone can type 'make me a football game with x parameters' and the ai just churns one out, then is anyone even going to want to pay for it?
To be honest, putting aside all the anti-capitalist stuff and the fact it’s EA, I do think it’s necassary that AI takes a lot of the work off devs because games have simply become too costly and time intensive to make and then sell at a reasonable price. Hence publishers not wanting to take risks and adding all the game destroying monetisation strategies to recoup costs.
Ironically, I also think AI can lead to more originality in the art design. Fewer preconceived notions of what “should” be, even if it is all an amalgamation of past designs (but then what art isn’t?)
Wow yes, AI has helped them create stadia in EAFC except they stuck the camera in Celtic Park in the away end.
@Ainu20 I think that devs are not interested in doing tedious things, as everybody of us (okay, except those who like to have their daily grind in random online games). In my team are several working students, creating the draft documents, and the professionals improve them. I am glad these students exist, but I feel also sorry for them, doing this stuff. I‘d rather would use a good AI for creating these documents, and the students would spend more time on more creative work. I believe that these thoughts are not far away from what this EA guy is saying.
Man oh man that guy is the worst.
AI is a fantastic tool to use for gaming development. We could see so many gains from artistic creativity to speeding up development cycles.
Whether it's gonna be used fairly alongside human workers is another issue. As long as short-sighted corporate greed isn't an all-consuming monster... Oh wait.
Side note: People love to blame CAPITALISM for all things bad but it's just a vast swathe of humans that tend to be fallible and immoral, whatever the system involved. The hierarchy of power and efficiency in productivity comes into play no matter the radical overhauls you try out - and saying this makes me glad a certain someone blocked me ages ago or I wouldn't hear the end of it 😂
I suggest starting by replacing andrew wilson with android wilson.
It will save the company millions.
If you use AI to create a selection of rocks with differing amounts of lichen on them, or a patchy field of grass for example, then that's development time released from some of the more menial things. If, however, you're asking it to design a character, there's more "moving parts" there. There's more to go wrong than some threadbare patches of grass. So AI is a useful tool, but should not be relied on to create entire games.
Andrew Wilson is the guy who invented the modern loot box. He's excited about this for the same reason he thinks loot boxes are a good idea. Like his one idea, it'll make more profitable games, but not better ones.
I wonder if AI would be a more efficient shareholder or executive…
I mean yeah, for EA this will be about shareholder profit not really making better games. Same old same old but cheaper to make. Job losses are unfortunately going to happen, instead of team of environment designers you might have a seed designer and someone to tidy it up. I'm more interested in what smaller devs and teams with real ambition can do. We might see a renaissance of what we considered to be last-gen AAA type games.. but made by tiny teams on sustainable budgets. AI can make it faster to get ideas out of the door so there is potential to explore creativity and build worlds faster. Not sure it changes much for the big pubs chasing GAAS but could be a creative explosion in the Indie scene.
Oh my god! @ShogunRok has been replaced by and AI! If the human @ShogunRok was still in control of his account, he wouldn't find any upside to AI... Or has he been corrupted by EA? Is his boss an AI??? Is the entire video game news industry controlled by an AI?
Extremely serious concerns aside, the only beneficial way to use AI is by replacing executives and investors by a Raspberry Pi or equivalent. Any poorly conceived robotic Ai would be more humane than those overly paid poor imitations of human beings.
Hahahahaha. It is, huh? Hahahaha
If it weren't for Xbox closing studios for no reason, Andrew Wilson would be the most asinine sounding person in the games industry right now.
@nessisonett TBF that is a good idea, it's where the nicer fans sit 😁
I'm going to go for a bizarre prediction: Sometime soon a game developer will use AI to create background environments in their game, unbeknownst to them the AI creates a small obscene image which isn't noticed in quality control. Then they get in hot water with ratings boards etc.
Quell surprise . Imagine my shock at this news. No I don’t mean shock do i. That’s exactly what all these lay offs are for. AI is having your job, it doesn’t eat sleep or take holidays. Human game devs are now pretty much redundant. It’s appalling but In the pursuit of profit it’s also inevitable
The proof is in the pudding, how many developers have been laid off this year again?
"AI...Its in the game."
I think he's right when it comes to EAFC's development. I could totally see AI being helpful in translating recordings of players into animations for their in-game characters, even from just a match broadcast. And honestly I would prefer an AI broadcaster at this point than the broadcast they have now, I can barely stand either of the duos and their lines get very repetitive very quickly... it's pretty un-immersive. Each FIFA game has been a step forward, despite what you may have heard from losers addicted to Ultimate Team- especially EAFC 24. I welcome AI in this game's development for sure
Completely agree with this guy. AI can get gaming back on track reducing costs amd development time - whats not to like?
@nitram2k11 Only when Partick Thistle are in the Prem!
Excellent, than they can sell their yearly copy and paste games for half the price.
Funny he should talk about AI and benefits, cause the AI in FIFA is s**t.
From the company that brought you surprise mechanics.
What do they mean by efficient? I hope it doesn't mean releasing half-baked product faster that will be fixed gradually with upcoming fixes 🤔
Android Wilson wants to eventually phase out game developers and entrust the future to AI
*to increase profits
"... and you don't even have to pay it a salary!"
What he's saying is true for all CEOs across all industries, not just gaming. Nothing to see here imo.
So many people will lose their jobs to AI over the next 50 years. Forget about expensive degrees, become a plumber, construction worker, electrician...etc. You'll get paid a fortune and won't get replaced!
@General_Spiller I'm sure those too will be replaced eventually...human greed will be the end of society and the end of humanity, unfortunately...the only question is when...?
AI could be used to help developers, reduce the likelihood of crunch or being over worked. But obviously it wouldn't end there with who is in charge at these big companies.
If he likes it, it must be bad.
AI and copyright needs to get sorted before this is rolled out in any significant way. For example, if you use AI to generate art assets, you have no copyright protection in that asset currently, potentially leading to profitability concerns. Using AI to “clean up” assets is probably okay while still being able to protect the content, but it’s a fine line and nothing is settled.
This is coming from EA, so of course it's a terrible idea.
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