Raph Koster participated in a recent discussion with Edge Magazine on the use of AI in gaming, and a look towards the future. Among the major issues discussed are soaring budgets, live-service and narrative titles, innovation, and the ways all of these might impact what we’ll see in the years ahead.
Back in 2018, Koster asked colleagues to secretly tell him what their development budgets were. “I gathered all of the data together, inflation adjusted all of it, and put it on a graph,” he says, as cited by PC Gamer, and noted that, after adjustment for inflation, budgets are growing potentially by 10 times every decade.
With those exploding budgets in mind, Koster thinks innovation might be particularly low for a while, until something comes along that “resets” things, and that the use of AI is going to continue growing with those budgets in mind. Yet, it’s not necessarily going to overtake the core, as he says AI tools “suck at generating plots”.
We’ve all heard that game development is expensive, and when the credits roll on something we’ve played, we can see just how many people worked on a project. Add in other resources and requirements, and Koster’s findings aren’t surprising. This in mind, the industries move towards the potential of generative AI technology is also not surprising, although many point to this as worrisome given rampant industry layoffs.
One of the other observations Koster makes is about live service games. As much as people may complain about them and their consistent temptation and sometimes outright asks to spend and spend, they’re extra important in this era of wild budgets. One of the things about this that Koster laments is the impact on narrative games.
“I prefer playing narrative games—despite what I make. But it doesn't matter. I think they're disadvantaged in a market like that,” he says. While a big narrative-led game can see successful development and come out without live service pushes, battle passes, and such, like Baldur’s Gate 3, the difficulty getting something new greenlit and the budget issues likely make Koster’s words a solid bet.
The takeaways aren’t without hope. Koster expressed the hope for some sort of “reset” and also kept potential environmental issues in mind as a possible springboard for a real world sort of MMO that could do some good.
“Could planting trees end up being a game mechanic in a large, world-spanning MMO, because the seedlings you plant actually have sensors in them, and you can actually see your stats?" he asks. Adds some new meaning to touching grass.
