Game industry is all set to be redefined by AI. The traditional model of developing a game and then testing it with the public, in the hopes of resonating with the gamers’ preferences, are soon going to be history. AI will soon allow gaming companies to test gaming concepts, plots and storylines with gamers before spending millions of dollars in game development.
Consider a scenario where a gaming firm creates a trailer or a gameplay using AI that offers a glimpse into how the game plot will look like and what kind of audio-visual aesthetics will gamers be offered by the concerned game. If the gaming community goes gaga over the game plot and the interactivity of the game, the company can then put money into developing the game. On the contrary, if masses simply ignore the game concept, the firm will end up saving millions of dollars that it would have otherwise spent on creating a game that does not connect with the gamers. Isn’t that a massive game-changer for the gaming industry?
Sentiment analytics is another big trend in the gaming industry where AI is making inroads quite rapidly. Using wearables embedded with sensors to measure stress, skin temperature, heart rate and micro-sweating, gaming platforms can customize the gameplay in real time. For example, if a gamer feels stressed, the wearables can pick the emotion and influence several elements, such as in-game character’s endurance, health, action accuracy and peripheral vision, along with influencing how the game environment interacts with the game character. Based on the real time emotion of the gamer, the gameplay can be different every time the game is played.
Another area being disrupted is motion capture for creating expressive animations in the gameplay, which speeds up animation process. Currently, actors need to wear special black suits dotted with numerous markers on joints and fingertips. However, new systems are emerging which eliminate the need for these specialized suits and rather use video cameras and AI models to extract animation data from movements of actors wearing ordinary clothes. Such innovations can speed up the animation process and bring the costs down, reducing time to market for the games in the increasingly competitive gaming landscape.
There’s much more to AI in the gaming industry and the future of gaming is no way going to look like what the industry is like today. AI is game to disrupt the gaming sector, are you game?
