Game Designer Yoko Taro Fears A.I. Will Leave 'All Game Creators 'Unemployed In 50 years

Generative A.I. is here to stay as a fixture in many industries. For whatever prospects it could serve as an asset, it also comes with its controversies, such as its rampant energy and resource waste, along with its impact on creators. This facet does not fall on the deaf ears and awareness of video game designers. During a roundtable discussion with Famitsu that included highly revered Japanese game creators such as Kazutaka Kodaka (known for his work on the Daganronpa series), Ishii Jiro (Sakura Wars), Kotaro Uchikoshi (Zero Escape, A.I.: The Somnium Files), and Yoko Taro (the NeiR series), the talk was centralized around Taro's newest video game, Hundred Line, for the Nintendo Switch and Steam, which available now.

The four spoke about a wide range of topics, but the future of adventure games and game creation may leave human story writers obsolete.

"Although there are still many titles I would like to create, I am concerned that if AI continues to evolve at this rate, adventure games created by AI may become mainstream," Uchikoshi states.

Kodaka shares his insight. But even if you can imitate a writer, you can't act like the person himself. For example, I think you can generate a game scenario that director David Lynch might write, but if it were him, he would probably make changes to it based on his own characteristics or style.

Taro chimes in. "I also think that AI will make all game creators unemployed. In 50 years, game creators may be treated like bards." The Drag-On Dragoon creator continued. I think that in the future, we will move from an era where we have to imitate the style of our favorite creators to an era where we can have our favorite scenarios generated. AI will determine the preferences of users and skillfully generate route branchings that they would want to read, and the recommendation capabilities will continue to improve.

Where the mainline industry stands on A.I. is up in the air, some brands, publishers, and producers have spoken about the technology. Nintendo's legendary director and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has stated in an interview with the New York Times they have no intention on using A.I. in the creation of their games, stating they would prefer to go "in a different direction". According to Video Games Chronicle, Split Fiction director Josef Fares referred to the prospects as "both scary and very exciting" during an interview. These are uncharted waters we swim through, when it comes to the future of creation in any field.

SOURCES: New York Times, Famitsu, Video Games Chronicle