Playing games seems to have become a daily routine in our lives, but if you think about the game experience in the past ten years, it is probably not an exaggeration to describe the changes as "earth-shaking".
More than ten years ago, the little bully and Super Mario were popular in the circle of friends. Today, the screens of PC and console games are infinitely bursting, and mobile games have become an entertainment method that can be realized anytime, anywhere. In addition, the e-sports and game peripheral industries have shown geometric growth. Behind these changes is the continuous evolution of basic information facilities. From PCs, mobile devices to cloud computing, every game upgrade is basically consistent with the upgrade of the technology base.
Of course, in the era of artificial intelligence, the game industry will not stand still. With the help of AI, future games may have the opportunity to derive more tactical changes and strategies. Toward this goal, various game companies have made efforts to create more playability through enhanced artificial intelligence and occupy their own place in the industry.
Blizzard - AI not only plays interstellar, but also improves the game environment
After AlphaGo's great achievements, DeepMind tried to open up more AI application fields, among which the game industry is one of them. Therefore, with the same goals, Blizzard, the developer of "StarCraft", seized the opportunity and cooperated with DeepMind, hoping that the researchers would learn from millions of previous battles and develop a set that can also be defeated in the game. Human artificial intelligence system.
More importantly, though, they hope that this technology can eventually be applied to the real world, not just at the game level. Currently, this research is still ongoing. In the first test, the training of neural networks and artificial intelligence is involved, and then its application will be put into the game, so that even without further instructions, the artificial intelligence can walk around the map, move the camera, and even arrange formations at will. .
In addition, in Blizzard's first team shooter, "Overwatch," the team is looking for ways to provide players with a more friendly gaming environment. According to the news just announced by the official, the Overwatch team is now developing a machine learning system ( Machine Learning System) to detect uncivilized language or behavior in the game.
If you repeatedly use uncivilized words in uncivilized chats, not only will the ban time become longer, but the account may also be suspended, or even permanently suspended.
Ubisoft - AI fixes bugs, reduces costs, and improves game quality
Friends who like to play games all know that Ubisoft has not only been called a potato factory because of its not good servers, but also has a lot of bugs. How to improve the user experience for this situation?
Ubisoft Montreal's newly established La Forge studio announced a high-profile AI assistant called Commit Assistant at the Ubisoft Developer Conference held in February this year , dedicated to "debug" (Debug) , hoping to get rid of the notoriety of Bugisoft in one fell swoop while reducing the burden of programmers testing and tuning game code.
In fact, BUG is not only a nightmare for gamers, but also for programmers. You know, finding bugs in millions of lines of code is not an easy task. Commit Assistant was born in this context. Replacing manpower with AI can not only effectively reduce the cost of game development, but also save a lot of time for programmers. Furthermore, the quality of the game will also be improved accordingly.
Of course, BUG removal is just one of the AI+ games research that Ubisoft is currently conducting. In fact, as the world's leading game developer and publisher, Ubisoft has developed and applied a variety of AI technologies, such as self-driving vehicle technology and SAM, an intelligent game assistant that promotes player communication and growth.
In order to actively develop AI technology and help the game R&D team create a more memorable game experience for users, going deep into the campus to hold activities to recruit talents will also become one of Ubisoft 's "means" to allow AI to penetrate the game .
EA - Train AI to play games and create more possibilities
When it comes to EA's application of AI in the game, it seems to have some collisions with some of Blizzard's behavior. It is understood that the company is currently training the AI challenge game "Battlefield". The goal is not to challenge e-sports players, but to strengthen the level of artificial intelligence and create more playability for the game.
So far, the AI computer soldiers developed by EA have been able to reload ammunition, pay attention to health, and master the basic skills that many Battlefield players have. However, although AI is familiar with the gameplay and will have different actions based on ammunition and HP, in Battlefield, which tests teamwork, AI is still unable to formulate perfect team tactics.
Although the technology is not yet perfect, officials said that its short-term goal is to use AI to find more game vulnerabilities, and hopes that in the future, AI can become part of the game and perform a series of more complex tasks. "Our goal is to create a new gaming experience that enhances the fun."
In Xiao Zhijun's view, AI technology can help the game industry in many ways, such as using natural language processing technology to analyze and extract player messages on the Internet/game platform; using facial expression recognition to analyze player test games emotional state at the moment; use historical player data in the game to predict player behavior, etc.
As for the four aspects that the game will be deeply affected by AI, it will mainly focus on: recommendation intelligence, NPC intelligence, scene intelligence and immersion intelligence.
Recommended intelligence : According to incomplete statistics, 50,000 new games are launched every day in the world today . How to find games that suit the user's taste from the many new games and let players invest in them? This is probably due to the algorithmic decision-making level. From the current point of view, in game distribution, adding intelligent recommendation and user portrait system is still a relatively new topic, game developers can choose to try it;
NPC intelligence : Most of the time, players will feel boring when playing games with agents. This is because the NPCs in the game are only the corresponding templated systems. If A is used to generate character relationships, combat styles, and combat intelligence through machine learning Maybe we will soon see the same NPCs in "Westworld" appear in our game;
Scene intelligence : In today's games, a big problem is that the world view is immutable. Or changes can only be made through version updates. Wouldn't it be better if the game world could be changed in real time? Of course it is. Therefore, the simulation of game scenes and changes by the AI system may allow developers to bring players a sense of excitement and achievement beyond reality;
Immersive intelligence : It is undeniable that the popular AR games have great charm and make people deeply immersed in them. The innovation brought by AI algorithms is bound to make AR/VR games more realistic. Such as environment capture, depth calculation, light restoration and other capabilities, perhaps these will be new opportunities for game development.
Finally, the infinite possibilities brought by AI are making the game go through a big iteration. A gaming experience that is infinitely close to the real world is emerging. It is not difficult to imagine that the game experience of leapfrog evolution is close at hand.