In 2026, artificial intelligence will be everywhere, and there’s a real fear of a Terminator-style robot uprising, even though it’s not stealing jobs or threatening an environmental crisis by guzzling water to cool servers. Still, with some of the world’s biggest companies spending billions of dollars on AI, it’s hard to avoid.
We’re also seeing something of an AI boom in the gaming world. Microsoft specifically invested $13 billion to acquire a 27% stake in OpenAI and $190 billion to help build data centers.
Microsoft is not alone in jumping on the AI bandwagon, as the gaming giant is being called upon to take this new AI approach amid mass layoffs of human employees. Similar to the PlayStation 5 Pro, which utilized custom AI upscaling, the PS Store has come under fire for allowing “AI slop” to enter, and Sony has just reaffirmed its own AI-centric strategy going forward. Nintendo seems to be avoiding the AI race (for now), but while rivals go all-in on this new technology, gamers may end up voting with their wallets.
New research suggests AI games remain unpopular
sega
Research published by Dr. Ross Barton, Head of Product and Data at Game Oracle, suggests that titles with confirmed AI are still widely accepted by gamers. A rather alarming statistic shows that 21% of all games released on Steam in 2025 included a disclosure confirming the use of some type of AI. We imagine that number has skyrocketed since then.
Burton admits that determining sales relative to reviews is difficult, but his methodology looks at reviews left within a month of launch and correlates this with users who are most likely to leave a review immediately after purchase.
The numbers speak for themselves: Games that use AI have approximately 53% fewer reviews than non-AI games. Almost 20% of AI-assisted games had no reviews at all. This suggests that fewer people are buying games.
Barton explained that the backlash appears to be against large-scale games, adding, “For low-quality games, our data suggests that AI has no impact. But for high-potential games, the ‘AI stigma’ is real and will severely penalize developers who would otherwise have been successful.”
The future of AI and video games
frontier development
The AI stigma argument doesn’t always work. in the end, Claire Obscur: Expedition 33 Despite the AI scandal, it was dubbed “Game of the Year” by many. Mr. Burton acknowledged that. final match It was open about its use of AI and was a hit when it first launched, but has since fallen significantly. Due to recent dramas, Crazy Taxi: World Tour And the fact that the game grabbed headlines primarily for its use of generative AI, rather than the game itself.
Importantly, Burton does not suggest that AI is the end of the video game industry, but instead that the report is “here to highlight the nuances of how AI is used…AI can be used well, and it can be used poorly, and that’s important.”
he mentioned similar backlash Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and jurassic world evolution 3supporting the idea that the larger the game, the more likely it is that angry villagers will sharpen their pitchforks in a fit of rage.
Burton expressed some optimism about future possibilities, concluding, “Why don’t we stop using hammers to build sheds? No, of course not. Just stop hitting everything with hammers.”
read more: ‘Assassin’s Creed: Spiritual Successor’ free demo criticized for containing accidental ‘AI slop’
