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Gaming market melts down after Google reveals new AI game design tool — Project Genie crashes stocks. (A.K.A . Investors panic because they don't understand what "real" videogames are) (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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Yesterday, Google announced Project Genie, a new generative AI tool that can apparently create entire games from just prompts. It leverages the Genie 3 and Gemini models to generate a 60-second interactive world rather than a fully playable one. Despite this, many investors were scared out of their wits, imagining this as the future of game development, resulting in a massive stock sell-off that has sent the share prices of various video game companies plummeting.

The firms affected by this include Rockstar owner Take-Two Interactive, developer/distributors like CD Projekt Red and Nintendo, along with even Roblox — that one actually makes sense. Most of the games you find on the platform, including the infamous "Steal a Brainrot," are not too far from AI slop, so it's poetic that the product of a neural network is what hurt its stock.

Unity's share price fell the most at 20%, since it's a popular game engine. Generally speaking, that's how most games operate: they use a software framework, such as Unity or Unreal Engine, which provides basic functionality like physics, rendering, input, and sound. Studios then build their vision on top of these, and some developers even have their own custom in-house solutions, such as Rockstar's RAGE or Guerrilla's Decima.

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[–] 236 points 9 months ago (36 children)

If this is widely adopted, I have enough emulators and classic PC games to never buy another game in my life and still be entertained the whole time. Good luck, corpo dipshits.

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  • [–] 125 points 9 months ago (22 children)

    This will never be widely accepted in the gaming space because it's not a game. The model only generates an interactive world, not a game world. It's effectively a glorified AI prompted showroom. It's useless as a development tool because nothing it generates is usable in the traditional development process which means the model would have to create the whole game but the model is incapable of understanding what a game is.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago

    Yeah this is more investors being stupid. Hell this would be impact VFX and Architects but the logic they are using. The whole thing is a cool demo but little real world application like like with most genAI.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    As a dedicated fan of walking simulators I can already see the amount of shovelware we need to dig through to find the good stuff multiplying by orders of magnitude.

    It’s been a year since I played INFRA and I’ve thought about it without fail at least once a week and it damn well isn’t because they haphazardly made boring environments.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Well that's something I didn't think about before. How would you even release an AI game? It's just a prompt and the rest is a black box.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    The companies that market machine learning tools to investors and the masses have not been set up by people who believe art has value. Everything is content, and content exists to be aggregated alongside advertisements or displayed for a fee.

    I genuinely hate that actual artists can’t use a lot of pretty neat novel digital levers to make stuff. Because it’s synonymous with garbage. The ability to leap across the uncanny valley has lost all novelty and is downright banal now.

    But the answer to your question is the same as every desperate attempt at getting a “good” use case for slop generators. It’s for cranking out low effort trash.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    That's all it does so far.

    But I doubt AI games will succeed, people are always going to want the human touch when it comes to art.

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  • [–] 33 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    That’s all it does so far.

    Isn't that the AI hype in a nutshell? "It's all it does right now but if you add insert hopes and dreams it's going to revolutionize X".

    I mean, human touch will play a role but I think the tech overall just nowhere near where it should be to make games. It would actually need to understand what it is doing because there needs to be some intentionality there. Something as simple as a counter going up when you kill an enemy, but I think even that goes beyond what current models are even remotely capable. They would be capable of imitating a counter for some timeframe but to actually keep track of it over a long gaming session? I have my doubts.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (4 children)

    They would be capable of imitating a counter for some timeframe but to actually keep track of it over a long gaming session?

    The article was little light on the details, but if the whole game is run on ai thats what is going to happen. But if AI is creating real code and the game it creates has real files that are saved on the computer, things like point counters are not anymore tied by the limits of AI's memory.

    But i just dont see how AI in its current state could make large cohesive projects.

    Also there is no such thing as artificial intellect. AI is just nice marketing word for something that tries to mimic what real AI would be.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    It's not generating any code. You don't even get a game out of the model, you only get a video of what you played. It's like an AI video generator except you have control over the camera and character.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    So its a glorified a procedural generator that does not save anything it makes?

    What the fuck. Its like saying game devs are being replaced because people see dreams when they sleep.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago*

    That's a very good analogy. Yeah, this is stupid. What's even dumber than the concept itself, is freaking out over it and selling stocks. This technology should not intimidate anyone, it's impressive by some limited metrics, but it's not in any way effective at creating a video game.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    Given that what it "does so far" already required the theft of the sum total of human creativity available online and the sacrifice of the survivability of humanity due to climate change, kinda seems like there isn't much else to wring out of this.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Its a step in that direction though

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    There were also steps in the NFT games direction. Steps in some direction doesn't mean those steps will lead to somewhere.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago* (5 children)

    This. My back log of physical DS and 3ds games is extensive and grows a little every time I remember I have the eBay app on my phone. Sorry wallet.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    3ds and DS cartridges both have a limited lifespan and are likely to experience save failure as the years pile on - have you considered hacking your 3ds and getting a flashcart for DS games?

    (You also won't be giving money to scalpers on ebay)

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    1. Selling games from 10-20 years ago isn’t scalping.

    2. I have 15 Nintendo handhelds on my last count. 2 of the 3ds are modded.

    3. I have a pretty sizable collection and I’ve not had a game die on me yet, aside from save batteries that I’m capable of changing. I know the games can eventually die, I know it’s on the horizon, but they all still work for now, and I think even after they die I’ll enjoy the memories that the physical media provided me.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)
    1. Retro games can totally on the market for completely unreasonable prices, look at any of the NDS pokemon games for a quick point of reference - especially insulting compared to the ease of using a flashcart.
    2. Damn, you're one of those hardcore collectors. I'm just the kind of person that bought a 3ds for the unique hardware layout and emulate the rest of Nintendo's handhelds on my Steam Deck, but different strokes I guess.
    3. The 3DS carts I believe are the most prone to failure - most of what I read comes from the Animal Crossing and Pokemon communities (probably due to their dedicated fanbases), so that'd be the primary concern. Considering you can regularly rip your carts using a modded 3DS, staying ahead of it would probably be wise (I'm not hatin' on the collection, but even diehard physical media collectors should rip their copies for safety).
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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Yeah man, the prices are unfortunate, but supply and demand is definitely a thing. Items are only worth what people are willing to pay, and I’m fortunate to be able to justify some of my expendable income on growing my collection here and there.

    If you really want your head to hurt, look up some of those really popular games sealed and WATA/PSA graded. Old graded consoles still sealed can sell for 6 digits.

    I definitely have several of my favorites ripped for a rainy day. It’s definitely not a hobby for everyone. I have more modern emulation machines that can easily run all of my backups, but there’s really no replacement for the real games on real hardware. Just like some people are audiophile vinyl collectors who thumb their nose at Spotify and a pair of ear buds.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    I also have probably emulators for approx. 90 consoles / systems and have full set of games for most... Even if no game is produced anymore, we can buy current gen PC and console games, including Switch and Steam. In addition to emulation of older systems. And then there is the modding scene... with never ending content for out beloved games, even remasters from fans.

    If the gaming industry goes wild, then I have no fear of missing out. And there are enough games (even to buy) that will serve me for the rest of my life.

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