Acclaimed game director Masahiro Sakurai has pulled off some legendary feats throughout his career, so it’s interesting to get this take on the whole AI bubble that has been dominating headlines as of late. In a new interview with Defaminicogamer mostly covering Sakura’s “Game Designers Award,” the outlet asked him some questions regarding AI and what he feels the impact of the technology will be on the industry. As the headline suggests, Sakurai has concerns.
When discussing coming up with original ideas, Sakurai mentioned how that has become increasingly more difficult over the years. “Nowadays, so many games are described as XX-like, or games that resemble another one. In other words, the thing everyone else already wants,” he said. He emphasized the need to be original, but noted that making something truly unique can be a daunting task. A lot of systems, conventions, and mechanics already exist across every genre, so it’s hard to rethink design philosophy entirely. That’s when the conversation shifted to AI.
Bringing up how 19,000 games release on Steam each year now, Sakurai said, “I think that number will only grow from now on, because AI will be used to turn them out. Most of them will end up unplayable, and there will be so many that it’ll be impossible to keep track or even understand them. With those AI games, the vast majority will be direct copies of games we’ve seen before.” This is a concern we’ve seen echoed by other developers, who sometimes hold back releasing demos so that AI can’t steal their concepts.
No AI can have “the human element”
Continuing on, Sakurai said, “Games like Supermarket Chaos or Needle in a Haystack Simulator have multiplied like crazy… But even if AI can create all these sorts of works, such as by analyzing the atmosphere of games from Fumito Ueda like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus and using that to create something similar, which could happen, but AI would not be able to create whatever Ueda himself will create in the future.” That’s really the key here: the human element. AI will never have that, even if it creates a convincing facsimile of it.
Related
SEGA reportedly taking a ‘very cautious’ stance when it comes to using AI for game development
Leave a Comment
Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
