Goichi Suda, who co-founded Grasshopper Manufacture and directs Romeo is a Dead Man, also called Suda 51, gave more details to Eurogamer about his views on AI tools that create content for games. This comes after he said before that they won’t use this tech in their new action game.
Eurogamer wondered if the game Romeo is a Dead Man, coming out soon, would be just as good or creative if they used AI to build it. Suda answered like this:
For me, I see a bunch of AI things on social media. Even with how far it’s gone, the pictures and clips from AI seem strange. Most folks feel that way too. Something in your mind tells you it’s not quite right. It feels a bit weird.
People say one day AI will trick everyone, so you can’t tell it’s made by machine. That might happen, but right now, it hasn’t gotten there. When I spot something from AI, my brain flags it right away.
If we used AI for Romeo: First, it would make a phony version of him. Romeo isn’t based on a real guy anyway, but folks would sense he’s flat. Hard to connect with, and a little scary.
Second, the way our team builds games uses special talents from our studio and friends we work with. Things like hands-on effects, artwork, and drawing graphics by hand. That human skill and love shows up to players. You can sense it. Not just that a person did it instead of AI, but that someone put their soul into it. They worked real hard.
Eurogamer brought up his earlier comments and a survey from Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association last year. It showed more than half of Japanese game makers use AI somehow. Suda said he doesn’t feel strongly about it. He thinks if more people use it depends on what players want.
He also said that Netease once had a group studying AI creation tools, but they closed it down later. Suda doesn’t know the exact reason. But he has some ideas.
As for not using AI in our games at all, it began as a rule from Netease for all their studios, Suda explained. They had a team working on AI stuff at first, but then they stopped. They shut it down and told everyone not to use AI in games. Don’t touch it.
Suda guessed why they closed that group. I don’t know for sure, they didn’t say straight out. But I’d say it’s one or both of these. Many gamers don’t want AI in their games. Also, problems with copying others’ work without permission. That’s hard to avoid and fix before using it. Easier to just drop it all. That’s my guess though. Nobody told me for real.
