Goal State Announcement & More | 22/05/24
My future project at AI and Games just went live...
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Welcome back to the weekly AI and Games Newsletter, it’s been a crazy week or so here at AI and Games HQ (i.e. my home office), and there’s much to update you on. The big news this week is the announcement of Goal State: my new project I’m bringing to Kickstarter in Q3 of this year, with the intent to create a platform of online courses for people interested in AI for game development.
But before we get into that, let’s run through some quick announcements for the week.
Announcements
I’m excited to say I’m taking part in the GamesIndustry.biz’s GI Sprint event running from June 17th - July 5th. I’ll be participating in a panel on the current trends and future of AI for games. Plus we’ll be hearing from Sahar Asadi, the Director of AI Labs at Candy Crush creators King on the work their team is doing on applying AI for testing. I’m looking forward to taking part, and to hearing more from Asadi, having heard them deliver really fascinating insights at conferences in previous years! You can find out more about the event here.
Another reminder that registration closes soon for the AI and Games Summer School. The site says May 17th, but it looks like there might be still be spaces? Be sure to visit the website to sign up and attend the event in Valletta in Malta from June 17th-21st.
Plus to reiterate my point from recent weeks, I’d love to do a special issue rounding up the Foundations of Digital Games conference. If you’re a researcher attending the conference and would like to share your work, please drop a line!
‘Goal State’ - Online Courses in AI for Game Development
This week I’m pleased to announce a project I’ve been running in the background for much of this past year: Goal State, coming to Kickstarter in Q3 of 2024.
Goal State has been an idea I’ve wanted to get off the ground for some time now. While AI and Games provides fun and accessible videos and articles all about AI for video games, it isn’t sufficient for those starting out in AI for games to learn everything they need to know. Goal State is how I plan to address that, by running a series of different courses handling various aspects of AI for game development.
In order to get Goal State off the ground, I will be hosting a Kickstarter that will finance the first course - Game AI 101.
You can watch the video above for a quick summary of what’s planned for the very first course. Plus, read the article linked to here for a deep dive into the idea itself, and critically why I think it’s important that I establish a series of trusted and reliable educational materials in AI for games.
Just One More Thing…
As we wrap up, I figured I’d share something that crossed my desk on Monday morning that I just thought was hilarious, and warranted being discussed.
Above is a screenshot of my YouTube copyright dashboard inside YouTube Studio (the backend of my YouTube channel). To this day, YouTube/Google seems to think I own the rights to the opening cinematic of the popular 4-player first-person shooter Left 4 Dead. Why this is, I have yet to establish. Critically I have also raised this with YouTube repeatedly to no avail.
I don’t own this content (I mean, in the interests of clarity, Valve does), nor have I ever flagged, demonetised, or had removed another creators content that uses this material. But somehow every time someone else uploads a video comprised partially or fully of the opening cinematic of Left 4 Dead, it appears on this dashboard.
Yeah, I don’t get it either.
Wrapping Up
That’s it for this week. We have plenty more news stories as well as regular AI and Games content to discuss in the coming weeks. Have a great week, and I’ll get back to writing!