In another round of game developers putting their two cents into how AI will impact the future of gaming, senior staff at Konami seem to think it won’t change anything at all.
Hideki Hayakawa, the president of Konami Digital Entertainment, issued a statement on AI’s effects in the company’s latest business report.
Konami is a legacy studio, being the developer behind huge franchises such as Metal Gear, Silent Hill and Castlevania, with its latest game Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse receiving a flurry of positive reviews.
And if you want to read our thoughts on the game, then you can do so here:
But despite being a titan in the gaming world, the company clearly doesn't see AI as an opportunity for improvement or as a threat to the industry.
This is quite a contrast to the view presented by Xbox, who have created a new division, Xbox Labs, to explore the possibilities between game development and AI after seeing the modding community use AI to mash games together.
The same can be said for Capcom, who actively plan to create games with AI by combining the tool with its in-house game engine.
But as translated by Automaton, it seems that Konami couldn’t be less fussed – with Hayakawa stating that AI improving game development speeds will not impact quality.
"Even if AI use does lead to improvements in production efficiency, I believe that the most important factors in producing entertaining and innovative video games are people and creators," Hayakawa shared.
Hayakawa also elaborated that even though game development is more accessible than ever with AI, "entry barriers have already been lowered by the advancements of generic game engines and the spread of UGC (user generated content)".
It seems for Hayakawa that the heart of game development is not making production as efficient as possible, but the people and ideas behind them.
However, this is not an anti-AI sentiment, as Hayakawa finished with "Even when it comes to epoch-making technological innovations, Konami provides systematic support so that creators can get a grasp of new technologies, properly assess the risks they may bring, and safely apply them to game development."
It seems Konami believes that integrating AI within game development isn’t a huge deal, but the AI data centres that are rapidly driving hardware prices might be a challenge looming on the horizon.
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