How Generative Tools Like Midjourney And DALL-E Are Disrupting The Gaming Industry One Designer At A Time

An anonymous Reddit user in the video gaming industry called Sarah shared, "I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney overnight."

What exactly did she mean? Midjourney is an artificial intelligence (AI) art creation tool built and hosted by a research lab with the same name. It creates images from prompts, similar to the popular DALL-E program created by ChatGPT developer OpenAI. Sarah's words reflect the Midjourney tool's power to create compelling imagery in a fraction of the time it takes a human.

Creating Art From Inputs

Sarah claims to work as a video game designer who crafts 3D environments and characters by hand. She noted the excitement she felt using her creativity to build immersive worlds and video game characters. But the launch of the fifth generation of Midjourney changed her role dramatically. She notes her firm fed images and instructional prompts into Midjourney's tool that included content from the internet, the names of other stylish video games and existing visuals. The AI could then output imagery in an hour or less that previously took weeks of development and editing. Sarah's role quickly changed from the idea generator and artist to cleaning up the AI-produced output.

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Sarah's story and a growing chorus of others prompt the need for AI discussions. Many industry workers, cognitive scientists and other groups want more discussion about the potential loss of employment opportunities and fair compensation as AI infiltrates creative professions. Proponents of AI restriction — or at least thoughtful reflection — note automation should not eclipse the need for human creativity.

Calls are growing for industry-wide discussions on AI's role, application and limits. The talks should involve multiple voices to help build a more inclusive and equitable AI landscape that meets the needs of developers, designers, players and video game company owners.

A key part of managing the adoption and power of generative AI for gaming is to find ways for AI tools to assist content creators instead of replacing them. Video game publishers will continue to embrace AI because of the potential savings and the tool's ability to shorten development timelines. Publishers and other groups should work together to create frameworks for using AI for video games to ensure they operate legally and responsibly.

AI tools can transform more than just video gaming aesthetics. Developers are using AI to create more immersive gaming experiences, using the tools to build lifelike non-playable characters (NPCs). These engines enable NPCs and other characters to evolve, remember past experiences and exhibit organic behaviors. These characteristics combine to create more engaging gameplay with players not experiencing repetition or games not having traditional end points.

Startup Gameflip is also transforming the video game industry by changing the way gamers can own and profit from virtual assets. It's a marketplace that enables players to "flip" their in-game items and reflects the shift toward more open and player-owned gaming environments.