(Image source: Pixels)
The AIGC revolutionized the game, but it wasn't enough.
@商科星球original
Author丨Yuan Jing
Edit丨Big Rabbit
Consumption has not fully recovered, but the game has already reached an inflection point.
Behind the soaring popularity of the game, in addition to the positive factors of the version number, the wide application of AIGC technology has become a highlight. While other industries are still testing and exploring, generative content technology has changed every corner of this industry.
Overall, the gaming industry has undergone systematic, comprehensive, and industry-wide changes —whether it’s Wenshengwen, Wenshengtu, or voice, most cutting-edge technologies can find a foothold here.
On the screen side: its changes involve original painting, painting to 3D modeling; on the voice side: from built-in voice, soundtrack to automatic generation; on the development side: code generation, text to code for assisted development; even on the marketing promotion side , AIGC technology is also involved.
In the game category, RPG, FPS and MOBA are involved. More importantly, AIGC's transformation of the game industry is not only to improve the efficiency of developers, art, CG production, and plot script practitioners, but also to be used by many game manufacturers to open up the market and improve user experience.
In the picture above, Digital Planet (ID: digital-planet) summarizes the high-frequency vocabulary of games + AIGC. In addition to mainstream game manufacturers testing the waters for self-development, companies in the AIGC supply chain have also participated in it. Among the game products involved, in addition to the old products superimposed with AIGC technology, this trend is also very strong in the new products planned to be launched. obvious.
01
The underlying logic of AIGC's popularity
As far as the business model is concerned, whether it is To B or To C, the basic principle of digitalization is to virtualize the processes and management systems involved in the physical world, that is, to abstract various entities, events, data, etc. in the real world into in digital form and simulated, stored, processed and interacted with in computer systems.
As a virtual form of entertainment, games are inherently digital, because the characters, scenes, tasks and other elements in the game are all generated by computer programs, and the player's experience is completely dependent on the design and implementation of the game engine.
Therefore, it is logical that the game industry was the first to be transformed by AIGC.
It is worth noting that the current AIGC technology can still be regarded as a "supply-side change in the content field" . Although "embodied intelligence" tries to directly transform the physical world by manipulating robots, in terms of technological maturity, it is much more difficult for AIGC to manipulate robots in the physical world than to build a virtual world.
At present, Wen Shengtu, Wen Sheng Wen, Wen Sheng Code, Wen Sheng Voice and other fields have formed their own ecology. Just take the Stable Diffusion of Vincent graph as an example, it can do the job:
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Image generation: used to generate high-quality, realistic images, such as portraits, landscapes, animals, etc.;
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Style conversion: It is possible to convert an image of one style to another, such as converting an oil painting to a watercolor painting;
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Re-creation: It can also be used as a tool for artistic creation to achieve more free and flexible creation. For example, different image elements can be generated first, and then these elements can be combined into the artistic work you want;
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Character design: Diversified and personalized character designs can be generated, such as different genders, different races, different occupations, etc.;
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Game level design: can generate a variety of game level designs, such as mazes, arenas, dungeons, etc.;
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To generate various types of game assets, such as textures, materials, special effects, etc.
In the ecology with SD as the core, there are a series of supporting tools such as WebUI Automatic1111 and DreamBooth as support. Of course, the same is true for Midjourney.
02
The next stop of the AIGC+ game: intelligence
At present, AIGC technology has certain advantages in improving efficiency and improving product quality. Only in the NeRF technology commonly used in games, there has been an iterative trend of tree technology (NeRF was proposed by researchers from Microsoft Research Asia in 2020, the idea is to regard the image as a three-dimensional radiation field, and use the neural network to The field is modeled and predicted, enabling image generation and editing).
In the above table, we can clearly see the iterative effect of technology on product functions.
Although AIGC can improve efficiency, it is far from enough for the huge demand of the game industry. Some practitioners believe that AIGC should jump out of the barriers of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and move towards intelligent upgrading. Taking smart NPC as an example, in addition to providing the dialogue function of generative content, it should also have the characteristics of automatically building houses and automatically opening stores.
In terms of intelligent upgrading, the industry is currently most optimistic about the direction of "smart NPC".
NPC is one of the few scenes in the game that can migrate real-world interactions. Some people believe that NPCs based on the underlying large model will be upgraded in terms of expression, motion processing and continuous dialogue. In future games, these characters may have their own identities, backgrounds, personalities, memories, goals, etc., and can respond and respond to player actions.
Smart NPCs may have thousands of faces, which can greatly improve the game experience at the same time. At present, mobile games such as "Naishuihan" have announced the implementation of the game GPT, so that NPCs will have stronger autonomy and randomness, thereby enhancing the realism of interaction.
At the level of plot design, the superposition of AIGC technology will break the shackles of "linear game design" in the past industry. Figuratively speaking, story lines similar to "Detroit Become Human" will be automatically generated.
03
AIGC+ game curtain slowly opened
Although, in the game industry, AIGC is considered an artifact of cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. But in the long run, some companies' products have come a long way.
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For example, the video technology provided by Runway ML has reached an extremely realistic level. In addition to games, its products can also be used in many fields such as film and television.
The products of blackshark.ai are used in the "Microsoft Flight Simulation" game. In addition to providing flight games, the company's products can also be applied in the fields of digital twins and drones.
(Image source: blackshark.ai)
In other words, for game AIGC companies, the application space of their products may be broader. In the observation of Digital Planet (ID: digital-planet), the same is true of AIGC companies that currently provide technology for the game industry at home and abroad-they often have multi-industry Know-How.
Although the domestic AIGC environment lags behind that of other regions, judging from the development of developed regions abroad, the day when AIGC+ games become popular will come sooner or later.