The video game industry is hellbent on harnessing the power of generative AI to boost productivity and dream up virtual worlds — while also cutting costs, of course.
According to a recent Google Cloud survey, 87 percent of video game developers said they are using AI to automate and streamline tasks, a notable figure considering the industry has seen massive layoffs as costs rise and demand weakens following major COVID-era growth.
However, as staffers at major video game developer Electronic Arts — which is behind some of the biggest franchises in the industry, from “The Sims” to “Battlefield” — told Business Insider, their employer’s attempts to shoehorn AI into everyday tasks are seriously backfiring.
Some staffers told the outlet that the AI tools they’re encouraged to use produce flawed code, among other hallucinations that need to be addressed.
In other words, the tech may be creating more work, not less — which doesn’t bode well for an industry that’s already infamous for its crunch culture and high turnover rate.
Others staff are even more apprehensive, saying they’re being forced to dig their own graves by training AI programs to do their work. One former senior quality-assurance design employee told BI that he suspects the company laid him off this spring because AI was able to at least partially do his job of summarizing feedback from play testers.
Workers are getting increasingly fed up with being roped into their bosses’ all-in approach to AI, culminating in employees openly mocking them on Slack. One meme seen by BI poked fun at CEOs for wanting AI “right now,” despite not knowing what to do with it.
The trend also highlights the rift between the extremely high usage of AI among CEOs compared to much lower rates among employees. According to a recent survey by HR company Dayforce, a whopping 87 percent of executives said they used AI daily, compared to just 27 percent of workers.
“It’s a problem when the dogs won’t eat the dog food,” TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz told BI.
Workers at Electronic Arts are being put through multiple AI training courses, and are encouraged to view the tech as a “thought partner,” according to internal documents seen by BI. They’re even being advised on how to use chatbots to learn how to deal with underperforming direct reports.
“AI in its different forms has always been central to this creative journey. We all remember playing against the AI, and it has evolved into today’s innovations in generative AI,” Electronic Arts CEO and chairman Andrew Wilson told investors last year.
“This remarkable technology is not merely a buzzword for us,” he added. “It’s the very core of our business.”
But despite its outwardly positive approach to the tech, the firm appears to be aware of the risks of overinvesting in it as well. Electronic Arts admitted that the use of AI “might present social and ethical issues that, if not managed appropriately, may result in legal and reputational harm, cause consumers to lose confidence in our business and brands and negatively impact our financial and operating results,” according to a recent Securities & Exchange Commission filing.
In other words, while video game companies continue to double down, players may be less enthusiastic about the prospect of playing AI-first games, as evidenced by badly-received product demos such as leaked footage of an AI prototype of the protagonist of the game “Horizon Zero Dawn,” which was mocked for being out of touch and creepy.
And it’s not just players who are fed up — many video game developers are also resisting AI. That’s especially true for jobs that are by design intended to foster a more human connection between the game and the player.
“Where work is highly personalized, identity-laden, or creative, employees want a human in the loop,” MIT Sloan School of Management Jackson Lu told BI.
More on video games: We’re Laugh-Crying at This Footage of an AI-Generated Video Game
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