kane_magus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kane_magus) wrote2024-09-11 03:34 pm
kane_magus) wrote2024-09-11 03:34 pm
Entry tags:
Peter Molyneux apparently thinks AI will let people make video games with just a text prompt
Google link.
Apparently, this is the original thing.
This reminds me of when I was a kid. Probably somewhere in the 7-9 years old range. Not long after the first time I played games on my eldest sister's (or her at the time boyfriend's) Commodore 64, I took a sheet of paper and wrote, like, a page or two description of a game on it, just prose and lists, something like that, all handwritten with a pencil. I didn't know shit about how computers worked back then. I showed it to them and said, "Can you plug this in the computer so I can play this game?" or some shit like that. They had to tell me it just doesn't work that way. It's not that simple or easy.
In that spirit, I am here to say: Peter Molyneux, who is 65 years old and has been in the video game industry for over 40 years now... ...it just doesn't work that way. It's not that simple or easy. Not now, not 35 years ago, and not 25 years from now.
(EDIT)
Don't have time to read the whole thing at the moment, but I like this guy's predictions, though (admittedly using an off-kilter definition of "like," anyway):
"Steam will still exist, but will require developers to pay a monthly subscription to be allowed to host their game, for free, on the platform. Disney's cultural wing will give grants to children to draw pictures of new characters, whom they will then of course own. Poetry will be the language of revolution but will be very hard to understand. Only the poor will pay taxes.
"The Olympics will be held in VR, and the winner in most events will be a shy man from China with a server farm in his cellar. Healthcare will be done by lottery, except for plastic surgery. The Mars colony will be due to open 'next year', every year, but investors will keep piling in the money. Star Citizen will not have come out yet. Peter Molyneux will be working on a new game.
"Bananas will taste different. Bees will be robotic. COVID will still be around, but everyone will pretend it isn't. RPGs will seem over complicated to kids, who will prefer to read books. The sky will be purple. Hawaii will be purely mythical. Destiny 2 will be a subject of academic theological research. A robot called Geoff will announce new games, endlessly, all the time."
(/EDIT)
(EDIT 2)
And, I guess, to be fair to Peter Molyneux, Shinji Mikami kind of said the same thing in that list of predictions, that games will just be mostly made by AI in the future. Go figure. It's still a bonkers prediction, in my opinion.
(/EDIT 2)
Apparently, this is the original thing.
This reminds me of when I was a kid. Probably somewhere in the 7-9 years old range. Not long after the first time I played games on my eldest sister's (or her at the time boyfriend's) Commodore 64, I took a sheet of paper and wrote, like, a page or two description of a game on it, just prose and lists, something like that, all handwritten with a pencil. I didn't know shit about how computers worked back then. I showed it to them and said, "Can you plug this in the computer so I can play this game?" or some shit like that. They had to tell me it just doesn't work that way. It's not that simple or easy.
In that spirit, I am here to say: Peter Molyneux, who is 65 years old and has been in the video game industry for over 40 years now... ...it just doesn't work that way. It's not that simple or easy. Not now, not 35 years ago, and not 25 years from now.
(EDIT)
Don't have time to read the whole thing at the moment, but I like this guy's predictions, though (admittedly using an off-kilter definition of "like," anyway):
Jon Ingold, Inkle co-founder
"In 25 years time, Disney's lawyers will have found a way to copyright the concept of storytelling itself, so it'll be illegal to make any kind of narrative content at all. Games will become purely abstract and non-digital to avoid litigation: multi-dimensional chess sets, playing cards with nine or 10 different suits. Darts will make a big comeback, with customised dartboards featuring pictures of your favourite characters' butts."Steam will still exist, but will require developers to pay a monthly subscription to be allowed to host their game, for free, on the platform. Disney's cultural wing will give grants to children to draw pictures of new characters, whom they will then of course own. Poetry will be the language of revolution but will be very hard to understand. Only the poor will pay taxes.
"The Olympics will be held in VR, and the winner in most events will be a shy man from China with a server farm in his cellar. Healthcare will be done by lottery, except for plastic surgery. The Mars colony will be due to open 'next year', every year, but investors will keep piling in the money. Star Citizen will not have come out yet. Peter Molyneux will be working on a new game.
"Bananas will taste different. Bees will be robotic. COVID will still be around, but everyone will pretend it isn't. RPGs will seem over complicated to kids, who will prefer to read books. The sky will be purple. Hawaii will be purely mythical. Destiny 2 will be a subject of academic theological research. A robot called Geoff will announce new games, endlessly, all the time."
(/EDIT)
(EDIT 2)
And, I guess, to be fair to Peter Molyneux, Shinji Mikami kind of said the same thing in that list of predictions, that games will just be mostly made by AI in the future. Go figure. It's still a bonkers prediction, in my opinion.
(/EDIT 2)
no subject
I mostly agree with the idea that AI will be used to generate games, and that it's a lot closer than it might appear.
Not good games, mind you.
But if you look into the modern casual f2p p2w mtx-laden garbage that infests mobile games, those are already incredibly derivative, mostly just reskinning the same tired (but oh so profitable) mechanics for suckers to keep spending their money on. Getting an AI to regularly slather new skin over those bones and keep pumping out new sexy anime characters with impractically asymmetrical outfits as gacha rewards would be both super effective and worryingly simple, and let's be honest; the people who are already spending money on these things aren't all that concerned about quality.
no subject
And, of course, "AI" has been used for decades in video games, in the sense of enemy/ally "bot"/"mob" behavior and the like.
It'll probably be closer than 25 years to Frankenstein all that stuff together into some dreadful slop, yeah.
I still think we're probably more than 25 years away from being able to type a single text prompt into an AI and have it spit out a top-to-bottom whole-ass video game (good or slop), as Molyneux was apparently saying, though.