We don't know exactly how much Rockstar Games is spending to make GTA 6, but it's safe to say the upcoming open world might be the most expensive game of all time, considering the thousands of developers attached to it and how long it's been in production. Although, one former lead on the series reckons future game budgets won't come close because AI will probably make everything less costly to produce.
Obbe Vermeij, the former technical lead on multiple Grand Theft Autos, told Kiwi Talkz he thinks the "bulk of the work [on games] is probably going to be replaced" in the near future. He even reckons that a first pass for cutscenes can be pretty much AI-generated, since characters could apparently be "rendered by AI, including the conversation."
Since Rockstar is automating all this work and presumably laying off talented humans in this (hopefully, please) hypothetical future, Vermeij says his "prediction is that GTA 7 will be cheaper to make than GTA 6," but "we'll have to wait 15 years to see if I'm right or not."
"It will remain that way," he added. "I think there's not gonna be a bigger game than GTA 6 because a lot of that stuff is going to be taken over by AI whether we want it or not. So, I think these banks of artists that are just building massive maps or massive cutscenes, I think some of that will be taken over by AI in the next, you know, five years or so."
Vermeij is hopeful that people won't necessarily lose their jobs - AI will just help games get made faster, but, I mean, just look at the state of things. For what it's worth, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick isn't comically drooling over AI as much as some other video game execs, as he recently said GTA 6's "creative genius is human" and allegedly believes in paying people for their work even if it's replicated by AI after. We'll see how things go.
My favorite GTA 6 trailer is now this fan-made PS2 demake that uses San Andreas to show off just how far graphics have come in 21 years
