Xbox exec: 'With AI, anyone can be a game developer'

Xbox gaming CFO Tim Stuart shares how AI could make game development more efficient, but it could also lead to job eliminations in the $185 billion entertainment sector.

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A bit ago, Microsoft announced that it was integrating generative AI into its Xbox gaming toolset in an effort to make games more efficient. At a time when the games industry has seen mass layoffs with thousands of people losing work, the news was seen as controversial, with Microsoft claiming that the AI could generate quests, stories and dialog.

Now Xbox gaming CFO Tim Stuart discusses how AI could handle processes like localization, scripting, and dialog sequences via tools that could lead to more game development roles being eliminated through this automation process. Stuart also touches upon how everyday people can become 'citizen creators' through AI, effectively allowing anyone to become a game developer.

Below we have a transcript of what the Xbox exec said during the Wells Fargo TMT Summit:

"On the developer's side, you think about the millions and millions of dollars of a game spent on localization, scripts, how you think about players moving to point A to point B. You have to have a non-player character in the game have dialog. AI can take care of all that.

"You can now say 'hey I need a player to get to A to B,' and instead of having to write thousands of lines of scripting or code, you can have the AI get you from A to B. Things like localization, putting things in new languages...when we think about game testing, a million AI bots can run through a level of Minecraft and find where players get stuck, where they spend money, how they think about a level.

"So this is, pun intended, game-changing for the developer. I think for gaming, there's two sides: Developer--efficiency, speed of creation

"On the consumer side...there's probably 100,000 game developers in the world, big and small, and now with AI you can generate code, you can generate instances, you can generate games. You can generate art assets: 'Hey, I want a tree in the desert.'

"What it opens up is that...anyone in this room can be a game developer.

"Before, you had to have sort of a unique angle. I know how to code, I'm a multiplayer level designer, etc. But now it takes the 100,000 game developers to millions and millions.

"The barista at your local Starbucks has an awesome idea for a game, and they can now use Copilot or AI to go create a great mobile experience.

"So you think about mobile of being that first instance of a lot of...I'll call them AI-generated mobile games...if you remember the Flappy Bird and Angry Birds, these games that really take off, I think you're going to see an explosion of...we call them 'citizen creators,' people who are not historically game creators that can now make games."