The Rise of Controversial Gaming Tech: Why Players Are Turning Against It

The Game Developers Conference’s yearly State of the Game Industry report has been released, highlighting the key development trends for 2024. Alongside consistently discouraging reports on layoffs and a shift towards live-service games, one of the most unexpected findings in the report is the widespread usage of generative AI, a technology that has sparked division among players and developers in recent years.

In the survey encompassing over 3,000 developers and various games industry professionals, 52 percent indicated they are employed by companies utilizing generative AI, and 36 percent report using it personally. There are considerable disparities in the extent of technology usage across departments. Employees in business and finance were most inclined to employ generative AI (51 percent), compared to 39 percent in community, marketing, and PR.

Despite the rising adoption of generative AI, it doesn’t imply it is widely embraced by developers. The survey reveals that 30 percent of participants perceive the technology as detrimental to the industry, an increase from 18 percent the previous year. Those with a negative perception of generative AI highlight the low quality of its output, concerns over intellectual property infringement, inherent biases in AI algorithms, and its documented adverse environmental consequences as primary factors.

Developers also raised alarms regarding the possibility that generative AI utilization could contribute to further job losses in an industry already suffering from layoffs in recent times. There is a solid rationale to believe this could occur, as even the executives who advocate for the adoption of generative AI admit the technology will likely result in numerous job losses.

A 2024 survey of nearly 5,000 CEOs from various industries indicated that about 25 percent of leaders anticipate “significant AI-related job reductions” and Several additional studies have reported similar trends. Microsoft, which terminated thousands of employees in 2024 alone, states that the implementation of AI will enhance profits while accelerating layoffs in a blog post ominously titled “The Golden Opportunity for American AI.”

Within the gaming realm, there have been initiatives to amplify the employment of generative AI from executives throughout the industry. Square Enix has publicly declared its intent to incorporate generative AI into its development process, though it remains unclear what that may entail or if it has been implemented at the company yet. Nevertheless, studios have been more transparent about their plans to substitute voice actors with AI, as seen in games like The Finals. This aspect of AI has already incited a prolonged strike by members of the SAG-AFTRA actors’ union, who persist in advocating for AI safeguards within their agreements. Andrew Wilson, the CEO of EA, has extolled the possibility for players to devise their own game content utilizing generative AI. Although such claims may seem ludicrous on the surface, they indicate that executives are zealously seeking methods to sideline actual developers from the development process as much as possible.

In light of the previous year in the gaming sector, it is unsurprising that fears of layoffs are prevalent. A staggering one in ten participants of GDC’s survey reported being laid off in 2024, while 29 percent indicated they had at least one coworker from their department who was laid off. Narrative positions were hit particularly hard, with 19 percent of participants stating they were dismissed. The shift towards generative AI may be a factor in some of these layoffs, as organizations redirect resources toward the technology and away from developer compensation, but the broader context is far more intricate, with soaring development expenses and rampant mismanagement in studios likely contributing significantly to job losses at this stage.

GDC’s survey indicates a trend of generative AI being imposed on developers irrespective of their preferences, yet, like any survey, it has its limitations. Laine Nooney, an associate professor specializing in media industries at New York University, has often critiqued the survey for not clarifying exactly who it encompasses. For instance, indie developers vastly outnumber those employed at prominent studios in this year’s findings, and the data set is heavily biased towards the United States.

This survey should not be perceived as a comprehensive picture of the gaming industry, but it does reveal that, at least among the developers it includes, the use of generative AI is increasing even as faith in the technology diminishes, and the repercussions of that could lead to even greater instability in the already tumultuous gaming sector.