There’s no doubt that one of the biggest talking points at last week’s Gamescom Asia x Thai Game Show was Dead Space creator Glen Schofield’s opening speech regarding his plans to “fix” the industry, in part by using generative artificial intelligence in game development. In addition to speaking with Schofield, IGN managed to catch up with another industry veteran, Meghan Morgan Juinio, to ask her thoughts on the controversial practice, which has previously been met with anger from Call of Duty fans, but also a lot of support from gaming industry executives like EA CEO Andrew Wilson.
“I think if we don’t embrace it, we’ll sell poorly,” said Juinio, who recently left her position as director of product development at Santa Monica Studio after 10 years and two hugely successful God of War games. “Artificial intelligence is a tool, something that will make us stronger. At least that’s how I see it for now. It’s going to evolve whether you use it or not, so I want to be at the forefront and help guide how it works and how to use it.”
Juinio then compared the utilize of generative AI to the procedurally generated content that has been a part of game development for decades, pointing to SpeedTree – a real-time tree generation tool – which was used as far back as 2002 to create leaves in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. She also recalled a time when animators balked at motion capture and using procedural generation to string animation frames together rather than manually inputting them. Both procedurally generated assets and animations have long become standard practice in game development, and Juinio seems equally confident that generative AI will also find its place.
When asked if she thinks the increasing implementation of generative AI could aid alleviate the rising costs of AAA game development, Juinio made it clear that the utilize of AI in game development is unlikely to be the final solution to the post-pandemic pattern of regularly closing studios and bursting the blockbuster game bubble.
While Juinio seems adamant that generative AI in game development is here to stay, she also remains certain that it will never be able to compete with the heart and soul that only comes from the human touch, and that the adoption of AI will only be positive if equal amounts are invested in developers to aid them produce the best results.
“At the end of the day, you still need ideas from game developers,” Juinio said. “The story of God of War is very much a human story based on human experiences.”
“At least for today, I don’t think it’s going to go away.”
Earlier this month, the developers of Battlefield 6 stated that there is currently no way to implement the utilize of generative AI in the daily work of the development team, even though the emerging technology is considered “very seductive.”
Indeed, the debate around generative AI is broader than in-game assets. In early October, Nintendo released a statement in response to claims about generative AI, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman calling copyrighted Sora 2 character videos “interactive fan fiction.”
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor in IGN’s Sydney office. He participated in the Gamescom Asia x Thai Game Show 2025 as a guest of the event organizer.
