As artificial intelligence continues to play an increasing role around the world, those involved in the video game field are increasingly faced with the challenge of adapting to the technology. While some companies like Crafton are active in experimenting with AI, many others intend to use the technology as a productivity tool rather than one that defines the final product they ship to consumers.
To learn more about this debate and the vastly different approaches to leveraging AI in the gaming world, we recently had the opportunity to ask a veteran who previously worked at both Ubisoft and EA about the issue. While attending the Madeira Gaming Summit, we met Erinrose Sullivan, who is currently the Head of Marketing at Level Up Gaming. After Sullivan appeared on a panel talking about the role of AI in gaming, he naturally touched on the state of AI. Mr. Sullivan explained:
“One of the first things that came out of this work was One is that we all have questions about what each other is doing, so I think some of the things that were really about sharing were about governance and policy. There are trials going on, some pilots from the publisher side and the developer side, but in many cases there’s a lack of governance and strategy. Having the policies and guardrails in place as we slowly roll this out across the board is really important.” There’s a lot of friction and employee concerns on this front with AI, so HR and the team need to be involved to some degree in it to ensure transparency and clarity in the process. ”
Sullivan went on to talk about how the rise of AI is also impacting the video game publishing side, and how companies need to be cautious about using this technology as a marketing tool.
“Perhaps the first real opportunity with commercial impact will be AI on the publishing side. I think for us, we probably don’t have as much technical expertise to integrate and implement it in a more effective way. So this is a real opportunity, especially from the publishing side. There are always concerns from the implementation, workflow and pipeline from the creative and development side, but we think the initial commercial impact could be from publishing, so we’re trying to further develop the technical skills to be able to implement it. ”
You can read Mr. Sullivan’s full interview below. She also talks about EA and Ubisoft and how they compare based on her experience working with both gaming giants.
