Job Concerns Rise Amid AI’s Impact On The Gaming Industry

Gaming industry experts are concerned about the rise of AI technology within the field and what it means for their jobs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been taking many industries by storm, however, its impact on the gaming industry is leaving a lot of people concerned about their future in the field.

Video game developers are troubled by the evolution of AI technology and its ability to generate images, such as 2D animation, which is what their careers depend on. Thanks to OpenAI image generator DALL-E and Vizcom, layoffs are rising within the gaming industry and a new investigation showcases the direct impact it has on those who have built careers within the space.

In spring 2023, an email issued by Activision’s then-chief technology officer, Michael Vance, revealed that AI was “top of mind at the video game publisher.” While systems were still being tested, it was reported that what experts at the company had seen thus far held “a ton of promise.”

“There’s a ton of anxiety for artists across the board with AI,” said environment artist, Molly Warner, who worked on an Overwatch game at Blizzard Entertainment, Activision’s corporate sibling, at the time Vance’s note was sent out. “Pretty much everyone I know is vehemently against the use of AI-generated images.”

Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick shared his take on the use of generative AI within the gaming industry and its impact during a company-wide meeting in May 2023, noting that AI technology could have both a positive and negative effect on individuals working in the field.

“I’ve known Sam Altman and the folks who are working at OpenAI for a long time,” he said in a recording obtained by Kotaku. “I don’t know how much people realize that a lot of modern-day AI, including ChatGPT, started with the idea of beating a game, whether it was Warcraft or Dota or Starcraft or Go or Chess.”

Kotick added, “One of the things that I’ve experienced over the last year is that same feeling that I had when I saw that first Macintosh, about how meaningful the impact of AI would be on society, both positive and negative.”

While there has been no direct link to tie job loss to AI uptake, especially as it pertains to the gaming industry, it has been reported that a total of 1,900 jobs were cut from Activision’s gaming division just a month after Microsoft completed its acquisition of the gaming conglomerate in October 2023.

Moreover, CVL Economics revealed that gaming is in the lead for AI uptake in a study that surveyed three creative industries: film and television, music, and gaming. Roughly 86.7% of gaming industry jobs reported the adoption of generative AI tools. Similarly, the same report concluded that 13.4% of gaming jobs can anticipate an AI disruption by 2026.

“Getting a job in the game industry is already hard,” wrote one developer in a post shared on Reddit. “But leaving a company and a nice team because AI took my job feels very dystopian.”

In 2023, layoffs took the gaming industry by storm with reports of roughly 10,500 people who were laid off from game development positions.