Despite Microsoft having made clear that they support generative AI over the past few years, it appears that this has yet to on any significant role across the development studios at Xbox. According to the head of Compulsion Games, developer of the recently released South of Midnight, there have been no mandates made for studios to incorporate generative AI into their games.
Similar to other tech companies, Microsoft itself has ventured into the development of AI toolsets, having built and deployed several that they say will bolster video game development. Earlier this year, the company unveiled what it called MUSE, claiming it was capable of producing “Complex gameplay sequences.” Prior to this, Microsoft partnered with Inworld to create an AI design copilot system it which was additionally suggested to be capable of helping developers. They stated it could “explore more creative ideas, turning prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests, and more.”
Despite this, Compulsion Games Founder and Head Guillaume Provost recently spoke with the publication Game Developer at Gamescom LATAM (April 30th – May 4th), confirming that Microsoft has not taken a first stance on the use of AI, stating, “I can absolutely guarantee,” that the tech is not mandated, going on to say “You’re talking to the studio that literally builds shit by hand. In the DNA of the studio that we have, we’re very craft-oriented. We’re very art-oriented.”
He did go on to state that there are some ways generative AI can, in fact benefit developers, though he suggested that, based on the games developed at Compulsion that they would probably not benefit from it as much. He stated:
I think there are a lot of cases where it could be helpful in pre-production for us to do things like spitting out storyboards for us to see whether it makes sense or not— not really stuff that we use in production, but stuff that we want to accelerate.
Provost stated that the technology isn’t really something he or the team at Compulsion is interested in. Disruptions, he also said, have always been part of this industry. One need only look to the height of NFTs a few years ago, which still exist, but are no longer part of the gaming ecosystem at large, to see the truth in that statement.
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