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Why No AI Games?

franklantz.substack.com

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Re: Why No AI Games?

#71

Post by ragBagger »

I think the biggest issue with any sort of AI games is the fact most of them are so open ended, the buck ends with your own creativity. When you are the one in control of so much, you quickly get tired when you run out of the story you want to tell.

I have a bit of hope that some sort of proper setup will fix this issue, especially with multiple agents able to pass json to and from the "game" side and the writer side. One of my ideas is an open-ended roguelike card game where the player runs through a bunch of player-created scenarios and builds their deck by taking things from that world to the next, so people can compare how their build influenced their version of the scenario.

Re: Why No AI Games?

#72

Post by strangecasts »

Compelled to point out there was a wave of "AI games" before proper generative models too: the Kinect used decision forests for pose estimation [1], but in an example of the "AI effect", the Kinect games are mostly remembered as cumbersome and largely dancing-themed, not specifically AI/ML games

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/kinect-body-tr...

Re: Why No AI Games?

#75

Post by discreteevent »

PaulHoule wrote: post #35
neonnoodle wrote: post #15

> You know what’s fun? A stick. A stick is fun. A ball is fun. Having a body is fun. I think that's one reason why VR has such quick hype/death cycles--it doesn't do a good enough job of fooling your body. Conventional games induce more like a dissociative or hypnotic state where you temporarily forget your body. That can range from very, VERY abstract (like Pong or Pac-Man, or BABA IS YOU), or built on an attempt to…

I think there's a certain antipathy between "hustle culture" and gaming https://components.news/the-gamer-and-the-nihilist/ that is is, people who are caught in AI FOMO are performatively trying to appear to be productive and that's the opposite of fun.

That article is brilliant.

Re: Why No AI Games?

#76

Post by PaulHoule »

zoogeny wrote: post #62
PaulHoule wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the other corner we have the AAA publishers who are laying off devs and canceling games and talking as if AI is going to revolutionize their business… somehow.

Not to be argumentative since I broadly agree with your characterization (and the mass cancelling of games is concerning), but I think AI will revolutionize at least asset creation. I worked on sports titles for a while and there was literally an army of contractors making uniforms, shoes, hairstyles, etc. I'm pretty convinced gen-AI will make that job obsolete.

I think the most interesting argument similar to yours centers around the problems of "social VR", that is, maybe people would like something like Horizon Worlds if the authoring tools weren't so bad. Part of the problem is that affordable XR headsets have a tiny amount of RAM and headsets with a moderate amount of RAM are crazy expensive and headsets with enough RAM just don't exist. Assuming you had something that could run generated worlds it would certainly be nice though if somebody could prompt them into existence.

I think you could make decent assets with AI but I don't know if the people who make video games today could. There's a certain kind of tastelesness which seems to infect people when they get infected with AI fever -- I think "gamers" are on edge for signs of this kind of thing because the AAA game makers give them off copiously no matter what they do.

Re: Why No AI Games?

#77

Post by aranelsurion »

mannanj wrote: post #12
coldpie wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a system like this could really work well Too bad, it's patented! https://www.eurogamer.net/shadow-of-mordors-brilliant-nemesi... Fuck software patents and every single person who has ever filed one.

Ah. Well, maybe we could improve the patent system instead? If most property is going digital, and we agree as a society that idea generators and executors deserve compensation for their effort, I think the answer would be better more evolved compensation systems and I agree stopping patents that are clearly a troll though would be better to be fucked.

> idea generators and executors deserve compensation for their effort

To be fair, in this specific example executors of the idea were already compensated by selling a well-received game with a cool new mechanic.

Re: Why No AI Games?

#78

Post by dmarcos »

jug wrote: post #23
drunken_thor wrote: post #17

I think AI could reinvent text based games in a fresh way that would be fun. Text based games were always so constrained by what the developer could guess that you would type but with AI it really could read more like an interactive choose your own adventure novel that is easy to navigate.

These are kinda popular today in the form of AI Dungeon, NovelAI, FictionLab etc. Basically you create characters with bios, traits. Then a setting/context. Now, as you write your story, you can have multiple characters involved and they'll act from their perspective and traits. Then these also have lorebooks with triggers, so if you mention The Barking Dog Inn, the AI and the characters will know what you mean and y…

What's your favorite game of this type?

Re: Why No AI Games?

#79

Post by dmarcos »

avaer wrote: post #40

I've spent way too many years chipping away at genai gaming, here's my 2c. First, the intersection between someone who understands and cares about genai (and keeping up with the SOTA), with someone who wants to put in the work and compromise to make great games, is slim. Think about the intersection between a procedural generation/shader programmer, someone focused on making a really fun and compelling game tech be d…

I'll be around but don't have a GDC pass. Any interesting AI + gaming meetups or side-events I should go?
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