Games where NPCs are backed by a LLM are a great idea but unless the majority of people gain the ability to run the models locally they will be niche and weird with blunders like these.
AIs could've made so much things in video games that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
A game could've generated a player-unique picture at the end of a playthrough, but instead AAA studios wondered "hmmm... what if it replaced our artists for the same amount of work but none of the appeal?" instead.
The only game I've ever seen do that is Blue Archive; you spell your name phonetically, and from then on the navigator NPCs, once you unlock the second one will call you that. It's a bit obviously artificial, but since she has a computery filter on her voice anyway, it doesn't stand out. It's a small but super cute touch.
Maybe I'm crazy, but didn't Fallout 4 do that? I name my characters 'Vincent' in video games, and I have a vague memory of the robot companion calling me 'Mr. Vincent'.
FO4 had hundreds of voiced names, but only by Codsworth. Everyone else calls you a nickname, like Piper calls you "blue" and Preston calls you "general".
It was cool but with such a big list of names (plus a lot of joke and easter egg names) there were some fairly common names missing for some reason. I had to use my middle name as my character name because my first name wasn't in the game despite being more common than some of the names in the game.
There are so, so many reasons for gaming studios to push AI into games and making games. However, none of them are related to art or quality of the game.
It is absolutely over. Usage of AI needs to be disclosed, like lootboxes etc.
AI is expensive for small projects, middle projects won't afford the risk and we all saw what big projects do with AI.
I wouldn't buy a video game with an AI disclaimer.
But I would argue there was never an opportunity because the investors never wanted to do that to begin with.
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u/UndocumentedMartian 2d ago
Games where NPCs are backed by a LLM are a great idea but unless the majority of people gain the ability to run the models locally they will be niche and weird with blunders like these.