There’s no sector quite like Tech for constant innovation and evolution in skills, job roles and growth right now, with AI being one area of tech right on the frontline of the Tech revolution.
Gaming has become a story of global success with the gaming sector far outpacing the film and music sectors combined in terms of revenue, as 2021 saw 27% growth in the US alone, bringing in over $56 billion.
The sector hasn’t been resting on its laurels though, with further innovations in AI the gaming sector now looks to revolutionise the way we develop and play games on all platforms.
While AI is being used to help developers create worlds, it is also used to design levels independently. Developers allowed an AI to watch levels of Super Mario being played, and the AI processed what it saw.
It then put all of this information together and was able to create a challenging level. While this was just a 2D platform level, it is a proof of concept that shows AI can learn what a level should look like and how it should play and then create its own.
The worlds that games are based in are getting bigger and bigger every year. While this allows for a complete experience and a game that takes a long time to finish, the actual world requires a lot of work to create.
AI is helping developers automate this process. Instead of a team spending weeks coding in clouds, stone, trees, sky, etc., AI can do this itself with only a few instructions from the developer.
The best example of this being No Man’s Sky, where instead of developers creating the infinite worlds, filling them one by one, a computer does it. The developers had to code in trees, mountains, and whatnot, specify the colours and shapes that these things can have, and the AI took this information and made its creations.
No world looks the same but combines a finite number of assets that the developers had to spend a fraction of the time creating.
NPCs give games life. They fill cities and towns, talk to you, give you instructions, help you, and fight you. However, they have their limitations, the biggest being that they only do what they have been programmed to do.
AI is changing this in a significant way. It can be used to customise and personalise NPCs depending on the situation, your playstyle, and what you have done up to the point of meeting them.
AI allows NPCs to change how they behave and think by taking in information from your playthrough.
This technology allows NPCs to adapt to what has happened and what is happening around them. It will give you a more personalised experience, as well as a different experience each time you play.
Massive open-world games are one of the best things to happen to gaming in years. The abilities to endlessly explore and discover new cities, towns, people, and secrets are fantastic. However, there is one significant downside to this, it all needs to be coded in.
AI can make a world feel more natural as it can create buildings, personalise people, and make whatever area you are in feel like an actual city instead of a programmed city.
GTA is masterful at this, as different people act differently; random events happen without your input, and the world around you behaves like a real world, whether you’re in the game or not.
If you combine everything that has been mentioned above, what you get is a game that reacts and plays differently every time you start again. While some games are brilliant and you want to replay them, they very often don’t stray too far from the first time you played; this is simply because multiple options and outcomes aren’t coded in.
AI can create situations, events, and even character personalities on the fly, meaning your experience will be different every time you start a new game and do another playthrough. AI gives a whole new meaning to “replayability.”
Developers and video game companies will save a ton of time, money, and resources through AI.
As mentioned before, it can cut down the creation times of giant jobs and free up developers to work on something else.
Smaller game studios will be able to create better games because they will be able to afford an AI system to do the work for them, opposed to hiring new developers that they may not be able to afford.
As one of the UK’s leading technology recruiters Colossus aims to be at the forefront of recruitment in emerging and growing areas of tech and AI is a serious focus of our attention.
Demand for skilled developers in AI is constantly growing and we are building strong relationships with leading employers in this area from niche emerging companies to household names in tech.
We are currently recruiting for the following roles: Machine Learning Engineer, AI Engineer, BI Engineer, Research Scientist, Data Scientist, Big Data Engineer, and people with experience in Robotics.
If you are searching for a role in this sector or looking to recruit, please contact Colossus today and speak to our team of sector specialists.
AI is and will be a massive game-changer in the video game industry. It will allow for things we have never seen before and give us experiences we didn’t think possible. It is exciting to see how this technology will be used next.
