When AI enters the game: big manufacturers throw money, small and medium-sized manufacturers are anxious, and front-line employees are confused

"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" on April 23 (Reporter Zhang Yangyang) The game industry has not embraced a certain technology so neatly and uniformly for a long time.

Recently, a number of people in the game industry told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that the company has now been studying and discussing AI and ChatGPT, thinking about further applying it to products.

The impact of this wave of AI has made the outside world believe that a "game revolution" is coming. At present, the impact of technology on the entire game industry chain has taken shape, and the impact will become deeper and deeper in the future, including but not limited to reshaping the development process, changing the product form and even the market pattern.

In this case, what is the difference between the value, application scenarios and problems solved by AI for companies at different levels? Which products are most vulnerable to impact? Which capabilities are more important? Businesses and individuals in different positions in the gaming industry are rethinking and evaluating their relationship with AI.

The reporter of the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" learned that at present, the top game manufacturers are investing a lot of manpower and financial resources in AIGC and ChatGPT to maintain their market position.

But "not everyone is Tencent NetEase Mihayou", small and medium-sized companies lack the capital and strength to break through the underlying technology, they need to think about whose technology to embrace, and to what extent.

▍AIGC+Game=?

A month ago, Hu Xuan (pseudonym) wrote a sharing post on social media platforms with the headline "The project team has been trying AI workflow for a month, are we unemployed?" ”。

Hu Xuan, a senior art designer at a leading game company in Shanghai, told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that he wrote this post to make a statement on the current AI applications and AI anxiety in the industry.

The change occurred after returning to work this year's Spring Festival.

Hu Xuan told the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that when AIGC and ChatGPT were discussed online only last year, he and his colleagues spontaneously tried to use AI to draw, "We want to see what it can be drawn."

But then the company seriously proposed to apply these AI tools to the daily workflow, "and then we spent a little time to get through this process", according to Hu Xuan, through the project team's regular lectures, most of the original painting colleagues have learned the basic AI software operation process and have been applied to daily work.

In the specific game workflow, that is, from the perspective of project establishment, R&D and production, publicity, post-operation and other links, what efficiency can AI play?

Liu Siming, CFO of Celadon Games, told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that at the project approval stage, the current help of AI is relatively limited.

Liu Siming believes that because the project is biased towards creativity and relies on the deep thinking of core producers, the basic thing that AI can do at this time is the collection of background data and the improvement of creativity, such as assisting in the construction of game world view, and perfecting some ideas.

However, in the R&D and production process, AI can already show its strength.

Liu Siming said that such as the writing of game copywriting, game map and scene generation, the introduction of intelligent NPCs (non-player characters), the art production of characters, etc., including post-music production, auxiliary testing of games, numerical balance testing, etc., "R&D and production is actually a direction that the industry is trying to break through, which is also the focus of the next stage of the layout of celadon games, and we hope to embed a lot of AI in this link."

As for the game distribution and operation, Liu Siming said that the production of publicity materials has tried to embed AIGC, and will also try to use AI algorithms in purchase volume and accurate placement in the future.

Liu Siming revealed to the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that Celadon Games has raised the application of AI to the company level last year, as a strategy to execute, and has cooperated with the head AI company, the future will run AI into the entire workflow, at the same time, Celadon Games is also communicating this strategy through internal learning and sharing.

"AI technology is revolutionary and must be embraced." Liu Siming emphasized.

▍What is the degree of cost reduction and efficiency increase?

The application of technology is on the one hand, on the other hand, the market is also concerned about how much AI has improved the efficiency of the game industry. Previously, a research summary on Mihayou was widely circulated on the Internet, which clearly pointed out the quantitative analysis of cost reduction and efficiency improvement in each link on the data.

However, according to the feedback of the game industry interviewed by the reporter of the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily", the current improvement efficiency of AI is obvious, but this degree is difficult to quantify.

According to Hu Xuan, for all the design content that the artist has accurately expressed, after tiling the color draft, the AI can generate a fine draft with light and shadow texture almost one to one without modifying the content, which saves a lot of time for the designer; For the situation that the design draft needs to be partially modified after receiving feedback, AI software can also make quick local redrawing very conveniently.

"However, there may still be objective errors in various small details, such as the classic finger drawing is incorrect, etc., which often need to be repaired manually." Hu Xuan also said, "In addition, there are various bugs, operation errors, and unskilled operation of the tool itself, which may affect the designer's work efficiency and produce hidden costs." ”

Shen Fengliang, vice president of Shengqu Games and head of the art center, told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that judging from the perspective of art, according to its recent use, he believes that AIGC's ability The recent ability can ideally reach an art practitioner with 3-5 years of work experience, but for some more complex tasks, AIGC's performance may still be limited, the defects and deficiencies are very obvious, and the understanding and performance in confrontation, emotion and creativity are not satisfactory. Larger scale data and more advanced algorithms are needed to continuously train and improve.

In this regard, Liu Siming also said that the work of junior painters can currently use AI to save a lot of time, but the style of celadon games has relatively high requirements for painting and tonality, and in the end, senior painters need to complete it themselves.

"There is no doubt that AI has brought cost reduction and efficiency, but now as the initial stage of the beginning, it is indeed difficult to quantify." Liu Siming emphasized that from the level of enterprise operation and maintaining market competitiveness, efficiency improvement must be considered, but cost reduction and efficiency increase are not the ultimate goal, the next stage, we should pay more attention to the cost reduction and efficiency increase on the basis, when AI can also make a large number of efficient production capacity released, for the game quality and player experience greatly improved, AI can raise the game industry to a height.

▍ "Don't be eliminated"

A senior game industry insider told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" reporter that the head game manufacturers are currently investing a lot of manpower and financial resources to form departments and develop AI technology and applications to maintain their market position and competitiveness, rather than just using a few AI software to enhance creativity. "But not everyone is Tencent NetEase Mihayou."

The person said that small and medium-sized companies lack the capital and strength to break through the underlying technology, so they are in a relatively marginal position, and they need to think about whose technology to embrace and to what extent.

For individuals, the current "AI replacement anxiety" may be a true portrayal of the hearts of game people.

On the one hand, basic, marginal, and partial execution work (here there are more game outsourcing positions) are being replaced by AI, and personnel layoffs are inevitable; But at the same time, the gaming market is attracting people who have the skills and tools to do so.

The aforementioned game industry personnel said that it is expected that in this half year, the game art industry personnel will face a round of reshuffle, and the market will only need more original, core and highly skilled people.

As a practitioner in the whirlpool position, Hu Xuan told the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily reporter" that even before AIGC became popular, the core ability that future designers need to improve is the ability to deliberate on concepts, and now this ability has become more important, for the directional clarity of the concept in the mind, the judgment of connotation and extension will have an increasing impact on the creative process, and the intermediate generation process will gradually be "outsourced" to various software.

"Don't be eliminated in this wave of AI." At the end of that sharing post, Hu Xuan wrote.