AI is a term that we’ve used in gaming for a lot longer than some other industries. Playing against the AI has been the way we refer to playing against the computer’s internal intelligence for a long time. Whether or not AI is strictly the right way to refer to this is up for debate, but now we have entered the real age of AI.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence in their truest sense can now be embraced and used in a variety of ways. Gamers will not be shocked to learn that their tech-savvy world is becoming one of the very first to use AI in ways that revolutionize the games they play.
Gaming has already been on a significant journey and is even a career for some people. The richest gamer in the world can now generate a lot of money from their passion for gaming. Content creators have a big influence on the modern world of gaming. What other changes could be coming in the future?
Personalized Recommendations
One of the applications of AI technology is customer profiling. To spare the marketing talk, this just means that it can store and process data about customers and help establish what sort of things they like and are into.
Casino gamers will already know what level of choice they are met with if they log into an online casino, where a lot of games and styles of games will be waiting for them. Slot games come in so many different themes and some people choose to play games with zombies while others choose things like sports-based or fruit machine slot games. Customer profiling is a way that all of the data of these customers is stored and used to make predictions. Imagine a player going to a casino and being met with games they are probably going to like because the casino itself understands a little about their preferences.
Some of this technology is already being used and experimented with but players can be sure it hasn’t hit its peak just yet. Personalized content could even be part of the equation in the future as this technology continues to evolve.
Generative Gaming Using AI
Bigger conceptual themes may also be part of the AI revolution, including games that are generative in some way. What does the term “generative” mean in this context?
Games have already started using this technology in some ways, think of the way games like No Man’s Sky can generate huge universes based on not very much data at all. AI has the potential to take this much further, as algorithms can potentially generate new spaces for people to explore in the game and even make this more personal for the player. Understanding things like difficulty level can also make a gaming experience more unique.
Intriguingly, games will be able to make more changes as players interact, and in some examples, like games with levels, the game itself may use AI to generate the next level. We’ll see examples of games generating more terrain and adding locations by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to make the changes.
Speedier Development
Artificial intelligence could also change the life of a coder. Making games is not easy and the level of time and attention needed to write all of the code in a game is intense. Console and PC games may have hundreds of thousands of lines of code and take years to make.
Machine learning can already change the approach for people in terms of coding. AI can understand the code and help to create the code for games, following simple instructions to emulate other forms of code and expand a game, adding new features, or just taking away some of the monotonous coding aspects from the developers. Developers may potentially be able to ask software to create assets for their game and let the AI do the work.
AI Characters
The whole way people interact with other characters could be revolutionized. You may have heard of NPCs or non-playable characters. These are the types of characters people come across during a game and may interact with. Machine learning has the capacity to change the way NPCs do things and we’re seeing some of this already with experiments by companies like Nvidia. The characters may have the capacity to learn and interact differently as a result, for instance, they may react to the way a player makes decisions through a game or be able to take on different experiences, reacting to events that have happened in somebody’s save, for instance. AI characters may even be able to have conversations among themselves in the future for a more immersive experience and to change the very fabric of the game in the process.
Conclusion
Gaming is always at the forefront of new technology and is willing to be the industry that takes a gamble and uses this new tech in exciting ways, machine learning included. The AI settings for playing games are currently very simple, but they show what the industry is able to do. As time goes on, this is inevitably going to become more advanced. AI may mean that no two gaming experiences are quite the same.
