Resident Evil and Street Fighter series developer Capcom is experimenting with introducing new technology, including generative AI, to tackle the ballooning costs and man-hours required for game development. In a recent interview with Google Cloud Japan, Kazuki Abe, a technical director at Capcom, gave some specific examples of what this involves. Based on his explanation, it doesn’t seem like Capcom is trying to use AI to generate anything directly related to gameplay, stories or character designs.
According to Abe, one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive parts of game development is coming up with the “hundreds of thousands of unique ideas” needed to create the in-game environment. For example, if you want to put a TV inside of your game, you can’t just use an existing product as is – you need to think of a fictional TV design from scratch, including the manufacturer’s logo and everything else about the object.
I can just go into the asset browser and find a whole slew of TVs I can just add to my game and either use them as-is, or tweak the look a bit to fit my aesthetic choice and not need to reinvent the wheel every damn time. It’s such a small thing that’s just filling out the background, that adding details like a fictional logo aren’t necessary at all, unless it’s actually relevant to the plot somehow. What the fuck is Abe smoking with that example?
It does make sense if you replace the word time with money. Paying all those artists to make all those little details for every little thing is costly. But AI will do it for free.
On the subject of existing asset use… I played yonder: the cloud catcher chronicles, and I am fairly certain the sound for rain in that game is actually the sound of something gently sizzling in a pan.
It’s super close, but -just- wrong enough for me to notice. And then be mildly bothered by it for the next 40 hours of playtime.
People will call you an asset flip if you do that. Plus I don’t know if all of these games use engines compatible with “the” asset browser
“The” asset browser could be any number of sources, some of which are not coupled to any specific engine. AAA games do also use already made shit, especially when it’s an inconsequential background item like a TV. They just don’t use them for the entire game.