How AI is fuelling uncertainty for game developers

"I'm very aware that I could wake up tomorrow and my job could be gone,” says Jess Hyland.

The video game artist says the industry she’s spent almost 15 years working in is on “shaky” ground at the moment.

A boom in players and profits during the pandemic sparked a flurry of investments, expansions and acquisitions that, in hindsight, now look short-sighted.

Gaming remains profitable, but thousands of workers worldwide have lost their jobs, and successful studios have been shut down over the past two years.

More closures and cuts are feared.

"Everyone knows someone who's been laid off. There's lots of worry about the future," says Jess.

Some bosses are talking up the potential of generative AI - the tech behind tools such as ChatGPT - as a potential saviour.

Tech giant Nvidia has shown off impressive development tool prototypes, and gaming industry heavyweights such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are investing in the tech.

It's claimed AI tools can save development time, free workers up to focus on creativity and provide a more personalised experience.

With budgets at the blockbuster end of the industry spiralling as audience expectations rise with them, it sounds like a perfect solution.

But not to everyone.

"The people who are most excited about AI enabling creativity aren't creatives," says Jess, a member of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain's game workers branch. She sits on its artificial intelligence working group.

Against the backdrop of widespread layoffs, Jess says the suspicion among workers is that bosses see AI as a path to cutting costs when labour is their biggest expense.

Jess says she knows one person who's lost work due to AI, and has heard of it happening to others.

There are also dozens of s online suggesting that jobs in concept art and other traditionally entry-level roles have been affected.

Most firms making AI tools insist they're not designed to replace humans, and there's broad agreement that the technology is a long way from being able to do so.

Jess says the bigger worry is that "jobs are going to change, but not in a good way".

Rather than creating their own material, says Jess, artists worry they could end up supplementing AI's efforts, rather than the other way around.

Publicly available AI image generators, for example, can quickly output impressive-looking results from simple text prompts, but are famously poor at rendering hands. They can also struggle with chairs.

"The stuff that AI generates, you become the person whose job is fixing it," says Jess. "It's not why I got into making games."

Gaming is a multibillion-dollar business but it's also an artistic medium that brings together artists, musicians, writers, programmers and actors, to name just some.

A frequent concern is that AI will serve to minimise, rather than enable, the work of those creatives.

It's a view echoed by Chris Knowles, a former senior engine developer at UK gaming firm Jagex, known for its Runescape title.

"If you're going to have to hire actual human artists to fix the output, why not harness their creativity and make something new that connects with players":[]}