The creator of Dead Space and former head of Striking Distance, Glen Schofield, is a supporter of the operate of artificial intelligence in game development and is not ashamed of it. During a keynote speech at the Gamescom Asia x Thai Games Show titled “Ten Ways I Come Up with Ideas,” Schofield advocated for generative AI as a brainstorming tool in game development, especially in Midjourney.
During the discussion, he described how he uses Midjourney to experiment with visual ideas in the pre-concept stage, as well as how he uses generative AI chat for brainstorming. Schofield, who spoke during the business part of the convention, claims that the development of artificial intelligence in gamedev is basically inevitable.
“History has shown us that every major technological leap creates entirely new industries, opportunities and specialists,” he said. “Artificial intelligence is a technological leap – it is like a desktop computer, the Internet or a mobile phone, and like these it will cause another wave. It will change the way we work and do things. Yes, some professions will change, they may disappear, but new ones – and there will be millions of them – will be created over the years.
“Explore artificial intelligence that will make you better, faster and more efficient,” he continued. “This way you will become irreplaceable. Now is the turning point.”
Of course, without a time machine, it’s impossible to know if Schofield is right, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that the operate of artificial intelligence will continue to grow. But compared to the others, he is relatively pragmatic and even has a keen eye. In an interview after his main chat, I asked Schofield what he thought about Elon Musk’s claim that xAI will release a completely AI-generated game by the end of next year.
He hadn’t heard of Musk’s claim, but it was unequivocal. “Year?” He said, clearly shocked. “Will they be able to make a game in one year? No, he’s full of crap.”
“Making a game in a year? I mean, someone’s going to do it, right. But I don’t think it’s great yet. He’s full of bullshit. That’s what I believe. I really want to tell him that.”
While Schofield’s discussion of AI focused on the technology as a brainstorming tool, I asked him what he thought it could be useful for in five years or beyond when it comes to dynamic game development. He mentioned world building and character building, “maybe taking it from concept and expanding on it”, but admitted that both are “still problematic” on an execution level, citing the difficulty of capturing character movement in 3D.
Schofield spoke at length about using Midjourney to create early visual ideas, which he then passed on to the art director. He described how he takes venerable drawings himself and combines them, obtaining strange results or simply creating bizarre specimens (“give this monster spaghetti with spikes”). There were about 80 works of his art (not related to artificial intelligence). exhibited in the gallery last year in San Francisco.
While AI image generation relies on untold millions of images already on the Internet, Schofield doesn’t believe this should pose an ethical hurdle.
