The 'No Gen AI' Seal of Approval | AI and Games Newsletter 19/02/25
Our monthly sponsor update digs into what's coming soon on AI and Games
Our monthly sponsor issue of the newsletter provides what you come to expect every week from
: with a summary of the big talking points in AI in the games industry, plus announcements of relevant events, books, courses, and more. However the main segment of this issue gives our paying supporters a deep-dive into what’s coming up across the board. From future newsletter topics, to YouTube episodes, new projects, our conference planning and much more.To read the full issue and find out about our upcoming future content and give feedback on the direction being taken, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Welcome one and all to the monthly sponsor update on
. In this weeks issue we have some fun updates, new conference videos, some interesting updates in AI from across the industry and then a big update on what’s coming soon across our various outlets. Let’s go!Follow AI and Games on: BlueSky | YouTube | LinkedIn | TikTok
Announcements
Alrighty, let’s jump into the announcements for the week! Starting with some new conference content!
EA Double-Bill from the AI and Games Conference
This week we launched two new videos on our AI and Games Conference YouTube channel. First up, Mónica Villanueva Aylagas from SEED provides an overview on 'Avalon', a new method for procedurally generating levels that gives level designers more control over gameplay features. The talk shows the workflow crafted allowing for fast generation and testing of levels of match-3 levels!
Plus we welcomed Alessandro Sestini from SEED alongside Luca Ballore from DICE to talk about their project to use Large Language Models to help automate issue management for QV teams working on the new Battlefield project. 'AgentMerge' is a workflow designed to help identify duplicate issues, and improve the efficiency of existing automations.
Quick Announcements
A quick thank you to Steve Cuss and the team at the Guildford Developer Summit which ran last week. A fantastic programme of talks, and I had a great time talking about the challenges of leadership in an age of AI alongside Craig Court from Supermassive, Niki Head at Stellar Entertainment, with Steve Cuss chairing the session.
L-R: Me (Tommy), Craig Court, Niki Head, Image Credit: Jon Torrens Also I wanted to give a shout-out to the team at Outer Brain Studios. They invited me to a playtest of their upcoming release Blood Typers, coming to Steam this week on February 20th. It’s a fun mash-up of Lethal Company meets the original Resident Evil and Typing of the Dead. Thanks again for inviting my friends and I to play earlier in the week, and I look forward to playing it some more post-launch.
AI (and Games) in the News
Not much happening this past week, but a few headlines caught my interest!
The “No Generative AI” Seal of Quality
A popular thread in my social media feed last week is of interest to us given it ties into a topic raised in my talk at the London Developer Conference last year.
On Thursday last week Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou, the creative director of indie games studio Polygon Treehouse posted his work-in-progress on a ‘No Gen AI’ seal of approval that indies can use to advertise their works. You can find the assets available for download at the Polygon Treehouse website.
Why is this news? Well it speaks to the broader frustration and anxiety over the (often overhyped and overzealous) efforts to push generative AI into game development. We’ve discussed at great length here over the past year about the state of generative AI in development, and in fact in my talk at LDC last year I said the backlash was starting, in that companies would move to distance themselves from generative AI.
While not stated in this video, but it appeared in other talks I gave throughout 2024, I talked about how indie games in particular would advertise themselves akin to organic farming and produce, and start communicating that they are not using generative processes and tools as a marker of quality. I’ve actually had the pleasure of knowing Alex since he started Polygon Treehouse working on the award-winning Röki, and so the funny thing wasn’t that I saw this trend emerging, but that I already knew the person leading the charge!
Hazelight Studio Lead “Understands Some People Could Lose Their Jobs” to AI
Josef Fares, who studio is famous courtesy of titles such as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and It Takes Two was interviewed recently by VGC discussing the studios latest title Split Fiction. During which the subject of AI came up, to quote:
“We need to adapt to it. If it’s part of the industry we should see how to implement it to see how we get better games. I can understand the fact that some people could lose their jobs but that goes for every new technology.
Bad stuff and good stuff will come out of it. You can’t just close your eyes. I believe AI will have a bigger impact on the world than the internet had, eventually. It’s a long time until you can use it in an actual development, at least not at our place, maybe others can do it.”
It follows a number of recent quotes, including Strauss Zelnick of Take Two that I mentioned last week. That once again speak to high-level perceptions without really having a grasp of the nuance, or at least doing so within a quick soundbite.
You can catch the full interview below or written up at the link.
Behind-the-Scenes Updates
Alrighty it’s that time of the month! We have a lot of stuff happening behind the scenes at
, and what better way to help me keep on top of it all, that to hold myself accountable! We have a stack of updates on the newsletter, the YouTube, our conference, Goal State, and more! So here we go!Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
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