The combination of the gaming industry and AI technology is fast becoming one of the most talked about technology trends. Several recent announcements have added to the excitement about the future of this field.
After building electric cars and rockets, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has set his sights on the gaming industry, announcing that his AI company, xAI, will set up a gaming studio — xAI’s first external industrial application. Meanwhile, Oasis, the world’s first game built entirely by AI, was also officially announced.
The trend of AI and gaming integration has not only caused discussion among gamer communities, but has also quickly spread to investors. Data shows that the percentage of venture capital funds focused on the gaming industry that will be invested in AI-related technologies in 2024 is rising every quarter, from 7% in Q1 all the way to 22% in Q3.
Naturally, the integration between AI and gaming draws much attention, and it doesn’t come from coincidence. One of the core attractions of AI is that it dramatically improves the efficiency of game development, lowers the cost and threshold, and brings more creativity, diversity, and quality to the game industry.
In the past, high costs and long development cycles have been a pain point for many teams in the field of game development. But AI tools are revolutionizing this situation.
Take Cybever, an AI gaming start-up founded in 2022, as an example. Instead of choosing the most common “generative” solutions, Cybever focuses on automating 3D scene design. This approach allows developers to seamlessly integrate AI tools with existing mainstream 3D scene development software (such as Unreal Engine and Unity), speeding up the development process and product implementation.
Imagine you’re a game developer ready to create a desolate post-apocalyptic world. In the traditional 3D design process, you may need to spend weeks manually building 3D models for rivers, hills, buildings, etc., or purchasing off-the-shelf components from 3D asset libraries, and then spend a huge amount of time placing these assets into 3D maps, making adjustments and layouts. But with Cybever’s product, all you need to do is type in a few simple prompts, such as “deserted village,” “cloudy weather,” “surrounded by rivers,” and then Cybever will automatically help you find suitable assets from the asset libraries and place them into the map. Within a few minutes, a lifelike 3D world will be completed. Not only that, it can also adjust the terrain, reverse the flow of the river, and even change the weather immediately.
For developers, this AI tool condenses scene design tasks that used to take one to two weeks to complete into a single day. Currently, more than 30 game studios are using Cybever’s products to help develop their games.
Cybever’s convenient tool that automates set design is also packed with AI technology. For example, when placing assets, this AI tool can take account of historical, cultural, and logical backgrounds, such as the proportion of farmland in a medieval village, or how wide a street should be in a modern city. At the same time, it can avoid common imperfections, such as floating trees or out-of-scale buildings, to ensure that the scene is realistic.
Cybever’s technology has not only been accepted by game developers but also acknowledged by the movie and entertainment industry. Recently, Cybever teamed up with The Day After Tomorrow director Roland Emmerich, whose new sci-fi TV series Space Nation relies on AI to generate spaceships, backgrounds, and other visual effects.
And the impact of these technologies has long gone beyond gaming. For example, in the future, Tesla will also be able to apply xAI’s gaming technology to autonomous driving simulation tests, having virtual scenes simulate real traffic conditions and optimize algorithms. Earlier, Intel already used the gaming engine of the racing game Grand Theft Auto 5 for its self-driving study. “Digital twin” technologies as such have been widely used in areas such as urban planning, medical training, and aviation. As you can imagine, with the continuous improvement of AI generation capability, the more realistic the game scene will be, and the more diversified its extended application.
Gaming has always been more than just entertainment. It’s also a unique way to explore the real world. With the incorporation of AI, the line between the virtual world and reality has become more blurred, and the scope of this exploration has become broader and deeper. We believe that as AI technology becomes more mature in the future, we will witness more cross-disciplinary innovations and breakthroughs.
