As Xbox triples down on generative AI, multiple indie devs reject it
Future Xbox games are to be made with AI, as indie developers rebel against the concept and start promoting a lack of generative AI as a key selling point.
Future Xbox games are to be made with AI, as indie developers rebel against the concept and start promoting a lack of generative AI as a key selling point.
Last week, Microsoft unveiled Muse, its new generative AI model that the company intends to use in game development. By feeding the model its own Xbox games, Microsoft hopes Muse can assist developers with making elements in new games.
It was only a matter of time until something like this happened, considering a number of companies, like Google, have been experimenting with similar technology, and it’s not surprising that Microsoft has been the first.
In the wake of Muse’s announcement, a number of developers expressed nothing but displeasure with Microsoft’s plans, but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella continues to be very enthusiastic about it, confirming that multiple Xbox games will be making use of Muse.
Speaking on the Dwarkesh Podcast, Nadella didn’t specify which games will be using Muse, probably because they haven’t been announced yet. Although Natella’s wording implied they haven’t even begun to be made yet, since the plan is to let Muse do a lot of the work.
‘We’re going to have a catalogue of games soon that we will start using these models, or we’re going to train these models to generate, and then start playing them,’ explained Nadella.
He also referred to his first time seeing Muse as a ‘wow’ moment akin to the achievements of other AI programs: ‘When [Xbox CEO] Phil Spencer first showed [Muse] to me, he had an Xbox controller and this model basically took the input and generated the output based on the input. And it was consistent with the game.
‘That to me is a massive moment of ‘wow’. It’s kind of like the first time we saw ChatGPT complete sentences, or Dall-E draw, or Sora.’
While the tech is impressive, there’s no guarantee anything Muse pumps out will be fun or interesting to play. The only wrinkle Microsoft is avoiding is infringing on copyright (something other AI tools face trouble over) since it’s only using its own games to train the AI model.
However, Nadella doesn’t address the very real concerns that people will lose their jobs if Microsoft deems Muse efficient enough at making games on its own.
It’s apparent there’s a divide between what the heads of big companies like Microsoft and regular developers want from AI, as a number of indie studios are now using the absence of generative AI as a selling point.
Recently, Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou, creative director at Polygon Treehouse, announced on Bluesky that he and fellow indie developers came together to design a ‘No Gen AI’ seal for studios to display on store pages.
It’s a free asset that can simply be downloaded from Polygon Treehouse’s own website and is already present not just on the Steam page for the studio’s Mythwrecked: Ambrosia island, but also for Rosewater by Grundislav Games and Castle Doombad Classic by Grumpyface Studios.
‘The issue is that these generative technologies are trained on existing works by human artists who have not given their permission, or been compensated, for their work being utilised. Essentially their work has been stolen,’ reads a statement by Polygon Treehouse.
It really goes to show that for as much as game companies tout that AI will be a helpful tool for developers, a lot of those developers don’t want it.
It’s not even something that only developers are concerned about. Many customers don’t want to spend their money on games made with AI. So much so that SteamDB, a third party tracking site for Steam, has added a tag to help customers filter out any games that admit to using generative AI.
Generative AI in game development is a deal breaker for some gamers (Polygon Treehouse)Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
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