You advance through a dark, lush forest, permeated with fog. Except for the trees, you are alone and without tools or resources. You must create your own reality and adventure, using your hands to build a virtual world by relentlessly hitting trees. You take a deep breath and start… BAM!
If you are a video gamer or game company, you can probably relate to this scene. And you will also recognize that gaming experiences have come a long way, mainly thanks to developments in artificial intelligence (AI). Yet, thanks to generative AI, a new frontier of gaming is emerging that will radically elevate content and make characters and virtual worlds much more expansive, personalized and realistic. A recent example1 is the partnership between Microsoft Xbox and Inworld AI, aiming to develop an AI toolset that dynamically generates game characters, dialogues and quests. Generative AI will move the gaming world from current scripted and somewhat limited interactions to a vast selection of dynamic player-driven experiences. The goal is to increase player interest, retention and revenue.
Here are some of the gaming capabilities enhanced by generative AI.
Become real
One of the first gaming features transformed by generative AI is character design. First there are non-playable characters (NPCs), video game characters not controlled by players. NPCs traditionally operate on pre-made, limited scripts, which gives them a stilted appearance. Generative AI will help opposing characters become more adaptive, creating more intelligent, natural, and unpredictable experiences for players.
Playable characters, or avatars, will also benefit from generative AI by gaining customization. For example, even the best-performing games have limited options for customizing avatar characteristics such as hair, skin tone, eye color, and clothing. Generative AI algorithms can expand the range of character features available, allowing players to adapt their appearance, clothing, and contextual behaviors based on gameplay.
In short, generative AI will help NPCs and avatars be more dynamic, diverse and realistic, thereby improving engagement and gameplay.
Adapt gameplay in real time
As generative AI improves character traits and customizations, it will also uniquely shape each player’s experience in real-time. Players’ skills and expertise vary greatly, from professional to novice and everything in between. Generative AI can analyze player behavior, predict their expertise and then adapt game levels to each player in real time, preventing boredom and defection.
Therefore, a positive gaming experience can be delivered to a wide range of users with varying skills and remains attractive to players as their abilities advance.
Expand the universe of possibilities
Game worlds are a major draw for players, and the ability to keep these worlds interesting and evolving is important to maintaining interaction. In gaming, procedural content generation (PCG) automatically generates large, adaptive game environments, replacing static, pre-designed worlds.
Using AI algorithms, PCG can produce near-infinite variations of game worlds, characters, and stories, increasing “replayability,” a holy grail for gaming companies.
While gamers benefit from constantly evolving gaming environments, AI-driven generative PCG also helps game developers reduce the time and effort needed to design game content. Indeed, AI-based generative PCG helps game developers quickly create many unique virtual worlds, without manually managing every design detail. This advances the creative potential of designers and accelerates time to market.
Get smoother animations and graphics
As PCG expands game worlds, animations and graphics should improve accordingly. Algorithms driven by generative AI can provide texture synthesis and create realistic, high-quality textures for in-game objects and environments. For characters, generative AI can help create smooth, realistic animations, thereby increasing engagement and entertainment value.
The narration becomes dynamic
The game’s stories can be produced dynamically using generative AI that adapts dialogue, narratives and plots based on player choices. The result is a highly personalized, interactive and immersive player experience. Additionally, natural language processing (NLP) models can enhance in-game chats to create natural, real-time interactions.
Improve your game
Generative AI will usher in a profoundly changed and improved gaming experience. To realize the full potential of AI and generative AI, gaming companies must first have the right kind of storage infrastructure. Without it, generative AI deployments often stall in the last mile. Indeed, many organizations currently operate with disparate IT systems that use traditional data storage systems that are not designed to handle AI workloads and unstructured data in real time. Modern storage solutions with distributed storage, data compression, and efficient data indexing support the speed and scalability required by AI.
As generative AI transforms gaming, players can expect more realistic and dynamic characters, game worlds, and content. Therefore, gaming organizations can facilitate more engagement, retention, and revenue. And I can’t wait to see my next-generation avatar as he takes on the challenges in the dark, lush forests and trees of tomorrow.
Check Intel Gaming Alliance.
Learn more about unstructured data storage solutions and how they can enable AI technology.
Read on AI solutions from Dell Technologies.
