Via slashdot, this is the first time I have heard of Google's project Genie. Apparently it will let you create an interactive world with a series of prompts. Stocks of AAA video game companies are dipping based on the news. However, it's clearly just a tech demo at this point.
I watched some video demos, and it certainly looks interesting. You enter a text prompt to create a world, and then another one for the character you wish to create. There is a check box for first or third person camera view, and then you get to explore the world using either arrow keys or classic WASD controls. You can also refine the world as you go. The whole video honestly gave me slight Star Trek Holodeck vibes.
It's certainly not seemingly up to the task of making a full featured game right now. For one thing, as far as I can tell there is no way to do more than walk around the environments, for the most part. One demo does show someone painting a wall. But the limits of object interaction are really unclear, and I doubt you can (for example) set up rules for some kind of character advancement or combat. Give it a year or two, and the ability to save and distribute links to the worlds you generate, and yeah it might be in the running for letting plebs like me design games without having to learn a 3D engine or the like.
I would love to play around with it, but right now it's locked behind a Google AI Ultra plan, which has currently been "generously" discounted to only $124 per month. I don't get enough value out of any AI platform I have played around with to want to pony up even $15 a month, much less more than I generaly spend on some utilities. Still, I will be quite interested to see where this goes.
In a completely unrelated topic, Project Gorgon is finally live, as anyone reading this is almost certainly already aware. I definitely plan to purchase it over the weekend just to support the peaple behind it. But I probably won't stick my head in until the second fresh start server goes up. Apparently they also managed to break peak concurrency of 1000 today. I really hope the game prospers, I have been rooting for them for a while.
Apparently the mere mention of this caused gaming company stocks to tumble, as the market apparently got the impression that developers will no longer be needed to create games. (Those people who sold off obviously don't know how grumpy gamers are about AI slop.)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I thought of that too after I posted. Given how prickly peaple are about AI being used just to create art assests in otheriwse fully designed game, the odds that they will accept paying for an entire game slopped out by AI seems rather low.
DeleteIt didn't affect game development company stocks so much as game platforms. The thinking seems to be that if people can make their own games with AI, they won't need to buy game-making software, or rather they'll only by AI game-making software. Which may well be true, eventually, although first there will have to be some AI game-making software, which this patently isn't.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article linked at /. Take Two Interactive fell, probably becuase GTA Online is one of their major money makers. Roblox also fell which makes perfect sense to me.
DeleteI have been thinking for a long time that what we really need to any kind of Metaverse to take off is something that looks a lot like Roblox, Second Life, or hell the old Neverwinter engine if you want to really go back, only much easier to use. Regardless of whether it works out as a game design tool, it may be of interest for that.
This also makes me wonder if any Open Access AI tools offer anything like similar capabilities.