AI in Gaming – The NKnock Gaming Industry Review in 2024

AI In gaming and what’s with the recent layoffs?

Lately, we’ve seen so much on AI where people create text and art contents. Also, testing of robots and replacing real jobs. And we did seen so many layoffs ever since 2024 started and more so in the gaming industry. Companies are laying off like 10-35% of their workforce. For any company that’s a lot of staffs to cut it sounds unhealthy. While I don’t have concrete knowledge on the gaming industry pie in 2024, I don’t see it will gone obsolete. So why are the layoffs happening so drastically lately?

While I was searching for the latest trend in games development, I came across this project AI & Game (free subscription). It is an education series on AI development in the gaming industry. It gave me quite a lot to think about. And I believe the recent layoffs has to do with:

• Cost cutting to survive in the post-pandemic era;
• To find the triple A development house’s identity VS indie game house (like ours in NKnocK);
• Change in company’s project directions; and
• To ensure future development catering for the upcoming AI trend.

The last point is especially important because if it was me, I never want to lose anyone. Unless of course there are no other choices. A company lives and dies with their key assets – The employees. That’s what I believe in.

So what is AI and how does it impact our industry?

Definition of AI in gaming

Artificial Intelligence (AI) already existed in games as early as the 1950s. The term “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI” was first introduced by John McCarthy of MIT. They stated that AI is computer programming that designed to perform high level tasks that only human beings can do. The tasks such as learning, critical reasoning and memory organization.

And then as we know it, AI took off to this date. Early AI in games were well documented in the game Spacewar! in the 1960s. And then it becomes more and utilized in many other areas and become so specialized.

According to the categorization from AI & Games, the use of AI in the gaming industry are as below:

• “AI that Plays” – AI engages in playing the game like NPC or the opponent. By applying logics like machine learning, AI are able to help the NPC and enemy units react smarter as if you play with real humans.
• “AI that Creates” – AI that helps to create contents for the game. Like helping to smart render the scene only when the player approaches, coding, stories & styles.
• “AI that Models” – AI that facilitates the game infrastructure and ecosystem. Like helping to learn the patterns then apply load balancing, cheat detection, and formulate smart analytics.

And how does that apply to a gaming studio?

Application of AI in gaming

Typically, in a game studio at the very top, there is the CEO/Founder and the product/ project manager. Then below that there are the functional teams game design, art, engineering, marketing & admins (like finance etc.). If you think in the AI context and what is happening lately, you see AI creeps in all operation units:

• Game Design – Assist in dialogues, balancing.
• Art – Assist in quicker ideas generation, concept rendering
• Engineering – Assist in coding, game lobby & cheat management, quality assurance (like game testing)
• Admin – Accounts, finance, HR all are getting AI helps already

I believe the impact is real and an evolution in how everyone will be repositioned to do things. That in terms of resources and project efficiency wise. However, all is not lost because I argue that most of the works (e.g. creating fun) cannot be replaced.

Final thoughts – I don’t think AI will take over the world

It was a surprised while I tried to learn about AI and it’s application, I learned instead on it’s extensive application in our gaming industry. I was initially searching for an example case and coding works. Like, the various options I can make a sample AI applet. My finding was both a reflection of how our world is becoming and gave a real perspective of current trends. Now, I still believe AI cannot take over the world but there are so many things that we can evolve to use AI better. And finally, I think AI cannot take over the gaming industry as well.

AI can for sure create better arts then me, render things & code better. However, creativity is not about the quickest, nicest and the best of all things. It is a merge and introduction of a new use case based on existing technology and knowledge. Think no further than Nintendo, they ain’t in mobile and they ain’t cutting edge in their graphics and consoles. Gaming is about fun and providing the experience to us gamers.

And let’s get that thought sink in. Until next time.

Written by NKBDL for NKnocK.com, Mar 5, 2024

Developer’s Blog – Week 13-14

Another two weeks of things here and there! We managed to keep things on track and spent time on updating the design. Next week it will be coding time! And Mortal Kombat movie is amazing!

Weekly Progress:

1. Brief schedule done
2. Game Logics done (A. Core Game/ B. Collection & Rewards/ C. Base & Shop)
3. Tax return
4. Base graphics update

A. Core Game/ Stage Design:

1. Goes in one way, leaves in another, with rescue person Super2 runs slower
2. Time limit
3. Aliens attacking in small bunch (can shoot and kill, HP to be tuned)
4. Alien horde (Impossible to kill, will get overrunned)
5. Player dies in one hit
6. No ammo limit

B. Collect & Rewards/ Rescue Game Design:

1. Rescue Dr Fu (unique card)
2. After rescued Dr Fu, proceeding rescues will become citizen 1, 2, 3 etc.
3. Each run can only rescue one person

C. Base & Shop Design:

1. Coolguy Shop Items, can pick only 1 for mission (Time increase/ Body armor good for 1 attack/ Bullet power increase)
2. Can cater for 5 citizens max, after maxed you need to send them off from the main menu, where you earn some resources from sponsors when you send them off.
3. Dr. Fu cannot be sent off, Bobobob has questions for him

Developer’s Blog – Week 11-12

Happy Easter all! It was a great time to stay with family and enjoy that family time! And then, during this time, we managed to PROGRESS in terms of fixing our ideas and backgrounds of our game! First is we understand the game must be unique and what we found fun for us, thus the others! And then, we fixed up our idea of our background of our character and story, which we will share on our coming post!

Direction of Design:

1. Is it fun for us?
2. Can we do this within our ability?
3. Can we do this within our give time?
4. How can we make it so we generate revenue?
5. Are we creating something original?

Developer’s Blog – Week 10

Am reading a book called “ReWork – Change the way you work forever” by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. We were inspired to make things simple. We rearranged our priorities of what we are delivering (Of course, everything subjected to change):

Direction of Game:

1. Launch game by 06/2021
2. Single player first
3. Proud, arrogant, funny, rescue
4. Casual shop
5. Actions & collection elements

Design Draft:

1. One liner story like “Rescue objective at the end”;
2. Super2 moves from left to right on scene via joystick and button;
3. Aliens will jump at you, shoot bao them;
4. Shop to buy a Big gun, but it is not needed actually.

Developer’s Blog – Week 9

We have set a new direction, and thus looking to launch a game sooner rather than later!

Reverting and removing the prior codes, and making a scene that works is great. Instead of trying to make everything perfect, we are making a fun game that can be played asap. That’s important because we never know what is best, until we launch it. Making a game, especially for indie developers, we believe is about heart and speed of launch. Some might not agree, but after so many hurdles, we found the best thing is really for us to focus. Keep refining to make the best condensed version of what best to bring to your players, and what we feel is fun.

Developer’s Blog – Week 8

As an indie developer, we are not afraid to admit we mess up, and this time we underestimated networking.

We spend like a week to make the game playable as a single player. Yet we spent like 3-4 months trying to make a network game yet we are still stuck. We felt that we must be able to launch things as we go, not to grind things out and wait for the best perfect version. So we are going to first design something playable in single player, then slowly progress onto multiplayer. Our goal is to make a fun game to play with friends.

Developer’s Blog – Week 7

We somehow found we were stuck on things.

This week, I continue to try getting the network stuffs done. Unity is great, but network itself is a big topic that goes beyond just coding. We told ourselves, look we need a deadline that is actually a deadline – One we can stick to as if our life depends on it! Keep it up! 😉

Developer’s Blog – Week 5-6

It is the CNY of the Ox. Wish all of ya good health and best of everything! We took a short break (and mainly because we are too busy with family things anyways. NKBDL spent time reading up more on network settings, evaluating the options. While

Developer’s Blog – Week 4

We decided to do something fun each week beginning 2021.

This week, it is close to CNY, year of the Ox. We tested deployed to Android but found it is really tricky to host on LAN. Ciaos successfully animated the alien and we will update to the website soon.

Developer’s Blog – Week 3

We decided to do something fun each week beginning 2021.

This week, we are sharing what we are doing. NKBDL updated the network code done with Unity + Mirror, fixed a key bug that we had on flipping our 2D prefabs. While Ciao designed an alien for our players to shoot at soon.