Championing, or certainly at least defending, the rise of generative AI use in game development, former Square Enix business director Jacob Navok argues younger generations of gamers don't share many concerns around the technology, reckons most gamers "do not care" in general, and insists he personally knows multiple studios using gen AI even from the "concept phase."
Navok discussed gen AI in games in a Twitter post weighing in on the discussion of Arc Raiders, which is famously – infamously, even – stuffed with AI voices. "I should add that in-game art and voices are merely the tip of the spear," Navok says, "and many more are using Claude for code."
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The thrust of Navok's argument is that, "For all the anti-AI sentiment we're seeing in various articles, it appears consumers generally do not care." This claim is firmly rooted in Arc Raiders, which has sold millions of copies throughout an explosive launch, despite developer Embark Studios – which undoubtedly has the resources to hire real voice actors – making highly visible use of generative AI.
Navok also points to Roblox hit Steal a Brainrot, which he estimates had "approximately 80x the ARC Raiders concurrents" and "is named after/based on AI slop characters." Younger gamers, in particular, seem AI-agnostic, he reasons. Or as he puts it, "Gen Z loves AI slop, does not care. The upcoming generation of gamers are Bane in Dark Knight Rises saying, 'You merely adopted the slop, I was born in it.'"
"It will be hard to find a non-indie title that isn't using Claude for code, and ignoring Claude's AI use because it's code while focusing purely on art shows that a lot of AI sentiment is being driven by emotion rather than logic," Navok concludes, alluding to more widely accepted applications of AI, such as one Valve engineer using ChatGPT to form a Deadlock matchmaking algorithm. (This very morning I spoke to a game developer who said they use ChatGPT as a search engine for light code references.)
"Activision isn't shying away from AI, neither is ARC Raiders. Tipping point has been reached," Navok says.
Gen AI has proven divisive among the people who make and play games. On the pro-AI side, just today the CEO of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead argued "there's a middle ground" on gen AI, supporting Arc Raiders and insisting the tech "actually makes gaming better."
When we pressed Embark on its reliance on gen AI, co-founder Stefan Strandberg explained, "we use a combination of recordings of real actors and [text-to-speech]" for voices and simultaneously claimed, "there's no end goal in replacing any actors."
Dead Space creator and ex-Call of Duty boss Glen Schofield has also been bigging up AI, calling it the "right investment" for game studios and advising others to "make your own rules on how you want to deal with it," offering his stance of using his own works as ammo for prompts.
EA, unsurprisingly, has committed to using AI (amid reports of related division in the company) but doing it with a "thoughtful, steady approach".
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is of a similar mind, and Valve billionaire Gabe Newell may be among the most emphatic AI supporters.
Yet there are still many, many folks – coincidentally, often folks who don't reside in C-suites or own yachts – pushing back against gen AI in many forms. I follow roughly a zillion game devs online and each day my feeds are filled with anti-AI sentiments.
Less anecdotally, huge groups representing major names in anime and games, from Studio Ghibli and Toei to Square Enix and Bandai Namco, have called on AI companies to avoid unauthorized use of their IP.
The idea of AI-generated games, in particular, prompted a strong response from Palworld developer Pocketpair's publishing boss John Buckley, who said, "If you've played even one game then you've a rudimentary [understanding] of games mechanics, so you know this absolute horseshit."
"I think you’re huffing pure copium if you think this is going anywhere," he added.
