31% of game developers already use generative AI

Valve recently announced that Steam will allow games made with assistance from generative AI tools so long as it's disclosed. If game developers tell the truth, we ought to be seeing a lot of disclosures in the near future.

In a survey of over 3,000 game developers from the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, 31% of respondents said that they personally use generative AI in their work, and 18% said that they don't personally use it, but colleagues in their workplace do. That means that 49% of game studios are using generative AI in some fashion—although mostly not in ways we'll directly perceive, judging by the other survey questions.

Generative AI tools are most controversial when used to generate artwork, writing, and voices that players directly experience. For example, upcoming Square Enix game Foamstars has been heavily criticized for using Midjourney to generate what the developer characterized as «0.01%» of its assets. Free-to-play shooter The Finals also recently angered voice actors and sympathetic gamers by using AI to generate voice lines.

Not all generative AI use is visible or audible, though. AI can be used to generate code snippets with tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, for instance. «The bulk of respondents were interested in coding assistance and speeding up the content creation process,» according to the survey organizers. «Developers were also intrigued by the idea of using AI to automate repetitive tasks.»

Large language models like ChatGPT are additionally used (at risk of getting bad or uncredited information) as general research and writing assistants that can, as a few examples, generate marketing copy, summarize a transcription of a meeting, or solve math problems. And as it turns out, it's actually finance, marketing, PR, production, and management where the most games industry generative AI use is occurring, with narrative, art, audio, and QA departments being the least likely to use it, according to the survey.

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