Like it or not, AI tools are proliferating throughout gamedev, and the human cost is already being showcased. According to reporting from Wired, which sources emails and employee interviews from across the industry – particularly at Activision-Blizzard – the application of AI generative tools in video games is spreading significantly.
The report references internal emails from Activision-Blizzard from as far back as early 2023, including alerts of the approval of AI tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion to produce concept art, a note from then-chief technology officer Michael Vance about AI tools being “top of mind” for the company, and word that the studio had secured access to GPT-3.5 and other AI tools for use in creating concept art and marketing materials. By the end of the year, a Call of Duty cosmetic made with AI tools hit the game’s cash shop.
This, of course, was followed by the well-publicized round of layoffs at both ActiBlizz and Microsoft, many of which affected 2-D artists according to one insider source who called himself Noah, while remaining artists were “forced to use AI to aid in their work” and compelled to sign up for AI training – even as the company kept assuring workers that AI tools were being applied to support artists and not replace them.
Of course, not everyone was completely silent about what was unfolding. “There’s a ton of anxiety for artists across the board with AI,” said Molly Warner, an environment artist who was working on Overwatch at the time the CTO’s emails went out. “Pretty much everyone I know is vehemently against the use of AI-generated images.” Yet even so, Noah claims that most developers were afraid of losing their jobs if they spoke out.
Activision-Blizzard is not alone in this adoption, as findings from a GDC 2024 survey point out, while another survey of 300 CEOs, executives, and managers by CVL Economics found that nearly 90 percent of video game companies had already implemented generative AI programs.
Wired’s reporting does point out other factors that have caused problems for artist jobs within the games industry, including outsourcing to contractors, but according to devs those outside firms are utilizing AI generation tools as well. One such example is the Japanese firm Crypko, which sells a flat monthly fee and low per-image license costs for AI-generated pieces.
Overall the concern among industry vets is that cost-cutting measures, a focus on quantity over quality, and moving to hiring temporary workers is going to further erode the artistic work of modern game dev. “Why get a bunch of expensive concept artists or designs when you can get an art director to give some bad directions to an AI and get stuff that’s good enough, really fast – and get a few artists to clean it up?” says a veteran technical artist who goes by the name Violet. “I think everyone’s seen it get used, and it’s a matter of how and to what degree. The genie is out of the bottle, Pandora’s box is opened.”
