Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Getty Images
Attention, gamers: : If you thought new titles on top of the endless cavalcade of sequels and remakes were now derivative, wait until you hear what game engine maker Unity has got in store.
during a recent earnings callThe company’s CEO Matthew Bromberg has teased a new version of its AI tool that he claims will eliminate the need for coding in game development, while somehow maintaining a straight face. Now, any scholar can suggest a way to become the next Hideo Kojima or Sam Lake. In theory, anyway.
“At the Game Developer Conference in March, we will unveil the beta of new advanced Unity AI, which will enable developers to bring full casual games into existence with only the native natural language of our platform – so it’s easier to go from prototype to finished product,” Bromberg said, as quoted game Dev.
He added, “This assistant will be driven by our unique understanding of the project context and our runtime, while leveraging existing best-in-class Frontier models.” “We believe this combination will provide game developers with more efficient, more effective results than the general purpose model alone.”
This announcement represents a bold, if not questionable, double-down by Unity. A survey conducted by game Dev Found that more than half of game workers think generative AI is bad for the industry. It is also a huge reputational risk: it causes controversy whenever a game is caught using the technology. Underscoring its controversiality, video game storefront Steam requires developers to disclose whether their titles use any AI-generated content.
There’s also a growing body of evidence suggesting that while AI tools don’t improve productivity — or at least not without sacrificing quality or morale — many programmers find that AI coding tools are so flawed that it’s not worth the trouble.
And this is with people who have the experience identifying where the technology falls short. Unity is probably targeting developers who don’t know any better, or clueless, dollar-sign-for-I bosses who will foist it on their subordinates. (This is a common trait among AI evangelists, whether newly converted or otherwise.): : For example, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang expressed displeasure that any employee who does not use AI to automate every possible task is “crazy”, as some of his managers recommended dialing back the use of AI. Another CEO claimed that he fired 80 percent of his employees because they weren’t as excited about AI as he was.)
However, Unity is pushing AI for a purportedly beneficial purpose: “democratizing” game development.
“Our goal is to remove as much friction as possible from the creative process, becoming the universal bridge between the first spark of creativity and a successful, scalable and sustainable digital experience,” Bromberg said.
We’re not holding our breath for anything good to come from this.
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