10mo ago

EA desperately wants investors to know it's on the generative AI bandwagon

www.gamedeveloper.com

16 comments

I scrubbed the video for the better part of 40 minutes. Here's the vibe. These points bounce off each other.
AI everything. This is aimed at investors who don't know shit about games other than it has labor cost. Nothing novel was shown or discussed other than broad strokes of concepts which we already know about.
Sponsors and Ads everywhere. To remind us it's EA
Creating is bad business. EA wants:
to use AI, not artists
fleeting interactions, not deep experiences
sell platforms, not content
engage algorithmically
They aspire to do to games what TikTok/Reels/Yt shorts did for video. Make it as easy to make a "game" (AI slop) as shooting a phone video. Let the algorithm bubble up addictive crap and get eyeballs on screens. Ads everywhere. Pay extra to make Iron Man a character in your 2-minute "game"
This is a nightmare and I hope they fail
EA on the AI slopwagon but good games nowhere to be seen.
- Using AI we can turn out garbage faster than ever!
  
  With AI we can automate the updating of sports team rosters and release a new EA Sports title every 3 hours.
- another chicken and egg problem
Their CEO looks like someone asked AI to make a business man. When your CEO looks like that, then your company is no longer capable of making good games.
- EA has never been very good at making games. The companies they partnered with were good at making games up until EA devoured them or began to actually get involved with what they are doing instead of letting them cook.
  
  I still have not forgiven them for what they did to Maxis.
It's a games company, they should have been procedurally generating levels for something for about a decade now. Spelunky came out in 2008 (yes it wasn't the first, but it's around that time indie+proc gen was popular)

16 comments