Video game industry billionaire: Get ready for AI to “completely revolutionize” the entire sector.
Gaming billionaire : Artificial intelligence is set to have a huge impact on the gaming industry and its billions of players, according to Min-Liang Tan, the billionaire CEO and co-founder of gaming company Razer.
From the way games are developed to the tricks used to complete levels, Tan stated that the repercussions of technology across the entire industry are incalculable.
“For us at Razer, the way we see it is that AI is going to completely disrupt everything, or change everything in gaming,” Tan told CNBC’s “Beyond the Valley” podcast.
Gaming plays a significant role in the creative sector, with 3.6 billion players around the world and annual revenue of nearly $189 billion, according to research company Newzoo, which tracks data across mobile, console and PC games.
“Game developers will now be able to use AI tools, and then you’ll have game publishers who will now distribute, market new games with AI tools… For gamers, AI tools will be able to change things in terms of the way they play,” Tan told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at the SWITCH conference in Singapore.
Razer, known for gaming equipment like mice, headsets, and keyboards, has developed Game Co-AI, a tool that uses computer vision to “see” how a gamer plays and provide tips for solving quests or defeating enemies. The tool will also use data like public APIs, and according to Razer’s website, a beta version of Game Co-AI will be available “in late 2025.”
The potential use of AI in esports — or competitive gaming — is still under discussion, however.
“I think we won’t be running AI during the game itself, but what about during training?” said Tan. Some e-sports players are keen to use AI to help coach future stars, Tan said. “There’s a lot of excitement about this. The opportunities are limitless.”
Along with helping players, AI will also be able to detect and fix errors when games are developed, according to Tan.
Traditionally, game testing involved “a bunch of people sitting in a room” playing games and identifying bugs one by one, Tan said, a process known as quality assurance, or QA. Razer is developing an AI QA companion that can find and log bugs — and soon suggest bug fixes, he added.
AI-created games?
The effects of AI are being felt across industries, but there is still some disagreement about how far AI can go in gaming.
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher that makes Grand Theft Auto, said Tuesday that AI cannot compete with human game developers.
However, when asked about his gaming predictions for the year ahead, he said: “I think we’ll talk about some new, exciting games that are being made with AI, and how we see the future of those. Maybe we could see one or two big hit games.”