Go ahead and use AI to make your video game — if you want the result to be derivative trash, that is.
Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the iconic Super Smash Bros and Kirby franchises, recently unloaded on how developers are using AI to “churn out” video games, saying the tech is speeding up development time at the expense of quality and originality.
The topic came up in an interview with the Japanese video game outlet Denfaminico Gamer while discussing the overwhelming wave of new video game titles that are proliferating on platforms like Steam. Sakurai, however, seemed to dismiss a lot of the new stuff as AI-generated sludge.
“19,000 titles is an impressive number,” he began, referring to an estimate of the number of games added to Steam in a single year, “but I’m certain that figure will only continue to grow — largely because AI will be used to churn them out.”
“The vast majority of these will likely be ‘unprofitable’ titles,” the legendary game designer added. “There will simply be too many to keep track of, let alone comprehend.” (Some translations have Sakurai saying that AI games will be “unplayable” instead of “unprofitable.”)
Earlier in the interview, Sakurai lamented that games are being pigeonholed into existing categories, with many of them slapped with labels describing them as “like” another game. Soulslikes, for example, have come to describe an entire subgenre of RPGs that are heavily inspired by the Dark Souls franchise.
AI, Sakurai later suggested, is exacerbating this rigid and unoriginal thinking, saying that most of what it creates “will likely consist of systems lifted directly from existing games.” As an example, he noted how the success of the indie game Librarian: Tidy Up The Arcane Library, immediately spawned loads of imitators.
“This kind of imitation is something AI is exceptionally well-suited for,” he said.
“Now, suppose AI is used to analyze the atmosphere of works by someone like Fumito Ueda — such as ICO or Shadow of the Colossus — and manages to generate something similar; that’s certainly possible,” he conceded. “But the things Ueda-san *will* create in the future — those are things AI cannot produce. Whatever artistic vision he chooses to pursue next, that is something only he can bring to life. I believe that is what we mean when we talk about human ‘originality.'”
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