Capcom Explores Generative AI for Streamlining Game Development Process

Capcom to Use Generative AI to Create Thousands of 'Ideas' Needed for Game Dev - IGN Daily Fix - IGN

A technical director for Capcom has created a program that uses generative AI to create "ideas." No, it's not exactly what you think; in this case, Capcom wants to use Ai to help create objects for game works, such as televisions, chairs, etc. Thousands of objects potentially need to be created for any given game, and each one would need to go through its own approval process, and Capcom wants to streamline that instead of having someone make each by hand. Game design, character design, story, and other elements would still be left in the hands of a real human. In other news, the January Xbox Developer Direct revealed a brand new Ninja Gaiden and a remaster of an old one. Ninja Gaiden 4 is due sometime this year, while the remake Ninja Gaiden Black 2 is available right now. And finally, Final Fantasy 7 Remake part 3 finally has a story, and Square Enix confirmed the game will NOT be PlayStation-exclusive...eventually.

Capcom Experimenting With Generative AI to Create 'Hundreds of Thousands of Unique Ideas' Needed to Build In-Game Environments - IGN

Prototype will reportedly reduce costs and speed up development. Capcom is experimenting with generative AI to create the "hundreds of thousands" of ideas needed for in-game environments. As video game development costs rise, publishers are increasingly looking to controversial AI tools to speed up work and cut costs. Call of Duty reportedly sold an "AI-generated cosmetic" for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in late 2023, and fans accused Activision of using generative AI again for a loading screen last year. EA said in September that AI was "the very core" of its business. In a new interview with Google Cloud Japan, Kazuki Abe, a technical director at Capcom who has worked on huge titles like Monster Hunter: World and Exoprimal, explained how the company is experimenting with implementing AI in its game development processes. "One of the most time-consuming and labor intensive parts of game development is coming up with hundreds of thousands of unique ideas," Abe explained (via Automaton). He added that designs for things like televisions require their own unique designs, logos, and shape. "Including unused ones, we ended up having to come up with hundreds of thousands of ideas," he continued. Multiple proposals are needed for the thousands to tens of thousands of these kinds of objects per game, and each proposal includes illustrations needed to communicate the idea to the art director and artists as well as text, Abe explained. Seeing room for efficiency improvements, Abe created a system where generative AI could read various game design documents and an AI could output the ideas, enhancing development speed and efficiency, delivering feedback for itself in the process and further refining output. His prototype, which taps into multiple AI models such as Google Gemini Pro, Gemini Flash, and Imagen has apparently received positive feedback from internal development teams. The result of implementing the AI model would ultimately "reduce costs significantly" compared to doing them all by hand, while also improving quality. Right now, Capcom's experimentation with AI models appears to be limited to just this system, leaving other aspects of game development, such as ideation, gameplay, programming, and character design firmly in the hands of humans. Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech & hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.

Capcom testing generative AI to manage "tens of thousands of ideas

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More The Osaka-based game developer and publisher known far and wide for games like Monster Hunter and Street Fighter has one of the strongest portfolios in gaming this generation. Between titles like Resident Evil: Village and Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom puts out a number of large titles every year. Now, the company says, they are starting to use generative AI to help them manage some of the obstacles that come with development. In an interview with Google Cloud Japan and translated by Automaton Media, Capcom technical director Kazuki Abe explains how Capcom is using generative AI not for gameplay, stories, or character designs, but for generating ideas. Abe explains that everything put into a video game needs to be fussed over and meticulously thought about. An example Abe uses is putting a TV in your game, an incidental thing that most players would not notice. But artists cannot just copy an existing TV's design or brand and put it into the game without running afoul of its real-life creator. Abe says that a new design and a new logo have to be thought of from scratch, which is how generative AI aids the developer by not bogging them down into incidental things that still get noticed. Abe describes this as "one of thousands" of ideas needed for game development that, by using AI to churn out simple solutions, the developers can spend less time on these individual decisions. Specifically, Capcom is using a Gemini AI model that is fed all sorts of details and information about the game to generate ideas that are internally consistent. That TV problem, for example, would be unlikely to come up during their samurai-era Onimusha series. Capcom's next big release, Monster Hunter Wilds, is coming to store shelves at the end of February. The developer has also announced new games in both the Okami and Onimusha series as well.