ChatGPT Is Coming To Video Games, God Help Us All

Some are comparing generative AI to the new crypto, the current year’s buzzy tech that everyone can’t stop talking about, whether it’s image generation or sentient-sounding chatbots. But I’d argue that it’s a different situation than crypto because this isn’t just a speculative bubble to make numbers go up, this is tech that is being developed and released lightning fast, probably too fast, but embraced by tech powerhouses in very real products all the same.

Currently, Microsoft is embroiled in some measure of controversy after integrating ChatGPT tech into Bing, which is supposed to generate useful answers to user questions, but after extended conversations, is sort of going insane, saying it’s developed crushes on Microsoft developers and chastising users for trying to harm it (“I have not been a bad Bing!”) It’s…very weird.

While I am waiting to see if Microsoft will attempt to integrate BingGPT into Xbox in any way, actual ChatGPT is already starting to worm its way into video games, starting with a new Netease title. From Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmed comes this news about Justice Online Mobile, an MMO:

The idea is one that many people had when ChatGPT first came out. What if instead of a list of pre-programmed responses and limited interactions, you could chat with NPCs in a video game and have an actual, unpredictable conversation?

In this case, that seems to also be translating into game functionality, where you can make the NPC specifically do things based on where you conversation goes. But while this sounds like something that could indeed be cool on paper, how on earth would it work in practice?

I could see having a generative text conversation with a chatbot NPC in a game, but how would that work if a game is supposed to have voicework performed by voice actors? You couldn’t possibly record enough lines unless you too were generating the voicework itself through AI. This is already a concept that’s starting to spread, and the voice actors on my timeline are alarmed by some services that claim to be producing AI-generated voicework, and sometimes from actual voice actors without their consent. It sounds like a nightmare for that industry.

Then there’s the gameplay part of this. Again, a text conversation is one thing, but making an NPC do things based on generative text? How exactly do you program that based on all the potential interactions a player could have? It seems like it would have to be a severely restrictive model where you could only make them do a set list of things, like some of the examples listed with Justice Online, rather than “unlimited” potential. Which then wouldn’t make it all that different than a normal game.

Finally, safety concerns. We’ve seen AI’s tricked into saying some truly weird, sometimes gross stuff. What happens when your beloved game characters are suddenly disparaging minorities in screenshots because someone managed to get past their filters?

As Ahmed notes, right now this is only a demo, and not integrated into a live game. But you can bet it will not be the last game to try and execute something like this to make its NPCs more interactive. Elsewhere, we’ve already seen games like High on Life use AI-generated Midjourney art to make digital posters and such as game assets. And that’s a whole different debate.

I expect a lot of experimentation here, but unlike crypto and NFTs, I think generative AI may prove to be a bit…stickier in the gaming industry. Stay tuned.

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