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The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

author:Every film and television
The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

■ From PC games to mobile games to VR games, every change in the form of games is a major innovation based on technology. ■ Some time ago, game designer Pietro Schirano showed on his personal social media how to use GPT-4 to generate the classic game Pong in 60 seconds. In one fell swoop, the entire gaming circle "exploded".

The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

▲Image source: screenshot of web page

As the most complex form of entertainment covering text, images, sound, video, 3D content and interactivity, the game itself has a high threshold for entry and production costs.

With the "explosive" development of AI technology, the application of AIGC (AI Generated Content, which refers to the use of artificial intelligence technology to generate content) in the game field is expected to fully drive the production revolution of the game industry, and its deep integration with the game industry has also received unprecedented attention. As Microsoft CEO Nadella said, "AIGC is comparable to the Industrial Revolution."

Recently, top game developers, game designers and game publishers from all over the world gathered at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) held in San Francisco, USA, focusing on game development and application AI robots, high-performance rendering on mobile platforms, AIGC practices on game NPCs... At the same time, domestic AIGC-related concept stocks have received strong attention from the capital market, and major players such as Tencent, Netease, Perfect World, Kunlun Wanwei, Giant Network, and Sanqi Interactive Entertainment have accelerated the layout of AIGC at the R&D, application and market levels.

So, has the inflection point between the gaming industry and AIGC arrived? What are the main areas that AIGC focuses on empowering the game industry? And what opportunities will be unlocked?

The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

▲Tencent Games demonstrated the cutting-edge application and innovative breakthroughs of self-developed technologies such as AI, rendering, engine, haptic feedback, and audio in head games at GDC Image source: Photo by Tan Yuhan, reporter (data map)

01

Breaking the "Impossible Triangle" of the Games Industry

The industry generally believes that the game industry is a natural application scenario for AIGC and one of the most important commercialization directions, which will have a transformative impact on the game industry as the relevant technologies continue to mature in the future.

On the one hand, small and medium-sized companies can rely on AI to save manpower expenses such as art design in game production; On the other hand, for the head game manufacturers, throwing money at technological breakthroughs has also become the busiest thing at present.

Since the beginning of this year, AIGC's transformation of the game industry has suddenly undertaken. In addition to Tencent and NetEase, the two leading game manufacturers have disclosed their R&D plans to the outside world, and listed game companies such as Giant Network and CMGE have also said that they are preparing to develop or access related technologies. Other large and small game manufacturers have also begun to develop large models such as AI painting and NLP to accelerate internal testing of SaaS applications.

Previously, Perfect World replied to investors that "at present, the company has applied AI-related technologies to intelligent NPCs, scene modeling, AI plots, AI drawings and other aspects in games." ”

The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

▲ Game creators are working Image source: Photo by Dong Xingsheng, reporter

For a long time, in the field of traditional game development, cost, quality and efficiency have formed an "impossible triangle" that can only choose between three choices. Today, with the powerful functions of AIGC, game developers can break the shackles of traditional game research and development, reduce the development threshold and cost, and significantly improve the efficiency of game development. AIGC can provide accurate and powerful empowerment for game development, plot planning, character interaction, and online operation through machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing.

For example, in terms of game art, AI is used to generate basic art materials, etc., which can efficiently complete model mapping, material stitching and other work; In terms of game programs, based on the game engine to optimize the repetitive work in the code writing process, only AI provides modification ideas to make simple batch modifications to the code. "The introduction of AIGC can achieve a rare balance between game development cost, quality, and efficiency."

Previously, a developer revealed, "The time to generate a concept map for an image has dropped from 3 weeks to 1 hour from start to finish." ”

Analysts pointed out that AIGC provides technical assistance in art icons, character dialogue, plot planning, game interaction, etc., so as to achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase, which will further lower the production threshold and promote active game innovation. "The ideal scenario is to improve the efficiency of existing processes by 10 to 20 percent."

For those casual games with advertising as the main monetization model, AIGC not only reduces the production threshold and cost, but also helps to optimize the traffic delivery effect, improve the user retention of the game, and expand the product matrix through rapid iterative production to reach the advertising monetization ceiling.

The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

▲Image source: Daily Economic News data map

02

The "Thousands of Faces" gaming experience is close at hand

The author observes that in addition to reducing production thresholds and R&D costs, AIGC is not only simply empowering the traditional game industry and improving industrial production efficiency. More importantly, with the access of mature AI such as ChatGPT, AIGC will promote the creation of real open-world games, whether it is NPC intelligent interaction or scene construction, it will subvert the existing game mode and help the game form upgrade and industrial transformation.

AIGC is a key technology for non-linear game design, which can realize players to change the game flow independently, especially in the process of open-world game products, AI can intelligently generate characters, scenes and their components according to instructions.

At this stage, most of the game plots and processes adopt a preset linear design, and the in-depth application of AI technology can enable the game to automatically generate story branches, mission routes, etc. according to player preferences and needs. In addition, in combination with VR/AR technology, player preferences can be analyzed through sensors, and AI can independently generate game plots, scenes, personalized gameplay, etc., greatly increasing the interactivity and immersion of the game, and realizing a game experience of "thousands of people and thousands of faces".

Taking NPC interaction as an example, different from the rigid NPC interaction behavior of traditional games, the highly intelligent version of NPCs that continue to learn gets rid of the constraints of the "main plot", and as a member of the open world game, it is endowed with a "soul", which will form a huge "social network" of open world games, improve the freedom and openness of the game, and is also expected to further improve the payment frequency and depth of game users, and achieve potential revenue increase.

The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

▲Image source: Daily Economic News data map

In February this year, the mobile game "Against the Water and Cold" announced that it will implement the first game GPT in China, so that NPCs have higher autonomy and randomness, and increase the interactive experience of players. The first AI co-created game design powered by NetEase Fuxi Big Model will soon be launched in the "Eternal Calamity" game, and players can use inspiration words to generate exclusive designs. All these have further opened up AIGC's imagination in the domestic game industry.

Finally, when it comes to the current development of AIGC in the domestic game industry, some people believe that compared with the "big and complete" meta-universe concept, the development path of AIGC is clearly visible. Some analysts also pointed out that the game companies that currently claim to have relevant layouts have not had long-term considerations in terms of underlying technology research and development and model training, and the landing is worrying.

Top image source: Photo by Wen Duo, reporter

Text | Cloud in Pants | Tang Yuan Yang Xia

The game circle and this session of AI are really CP

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