At a time when it seems like everyone everywhere is either excited or afraid by how much AI is going to shake up all sorts of industries, it's refreshing when you hear someone say, essentially, 'eh,' but that seems to be the sentiment being expressed by Konami president Hideki Hayakawa in the company's latest earnings report.
The financial report, as spotted by Dengeki and translated by Automaton, details Konami's current approach to the rapid proliferation of AI and its thinking on the technology's potential impact on the gaming industry as a whole. The general consensus right now, which seems to be as fluid as the weather, is that AI as a tool to drastically increase efficiency is a near inevitability, but the increase of actual AI-generated game content including art and voice lines, not to mention the AI-assisted vibe-coding boom that has Microsoft's tail wagging, has the industry wondering if a line will ever be drawn. For Hayakawa and Konami, there may be no need.
Per Automaton's translation, Hayakama said in Konami's earnings report that AI probably "won't bring a significant change" to the game market. Answering specifically to questions about how AI might lower the barrier to entry for aspiring game developers, Hayakama dismissed that, too.
"Entry barriers have already been lowered by the advancements of generic game engines and the spread of UGC (user generated content)," he said, adding, "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."
I'm not sure how to read this one. On one hand, there's no denying the metaphorical breath of fresh air that it is seeing such a prominent industry figure downplay AI's influence, but on the other, is it strictly a good thing if one of the few potential upsides – meaning increased efficiency – to an otherwise terrifying technological advancement is straight-up bunk? As ever, there's an inherent fogginess to second-hand translated quotes, and of course most gaming execs are far more bullish on AI in game dev, but it seems Konami isn't buying the hype at the moment.
