Research Suggests 73% of Games Industry Decision Makers Are Expanding Investment in AI

Virtuos, the Singaporean game developer and content production company, may not be exceedingly known to the public of gamers. Despite that, they’ve actually helped develop several of the best games released in recent years, including but not limited to The Last of Us, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Injustice: Gods Among Us, L.A. Noire, Battlefield V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Battlefield 1, Gravity Rush 2, Dark Souls Remastered and Spyro: Reignited Trilogy.

That’s not all Virtuos is doing, anyway. For example, they have recently conducted a survey in partnership with OnePoll, asking 250 senior management or business owners in the US and UK games industry about their top investment priorities in the coming twelve months.

The research, carried out online between August 13th and 23rd, revealed that expanding AI investment is the top priority for 73% of those interviewed. Additionally, those participating in the poll suggested that 54% of all art content for games would be AI-produced in the next year.

Following closely after AI, 72% of the respondents intend to invest more in Virtual Reality, 63% want to expand their investments in cloud computing, 61% have expressed interest in 3D scanning and/or photogrammetry, while Augmented Reality sits at the bottom with 54% of the senior managers/business owners interested in investing more in this area.

Lastly, 53% of those participating in the poll said they would allocate more investment in remote co-development. Gilles Langourieux, CEO at Virtuos, commented:

The global videogames industry is constantly evolving as games become bigger, more detailed, and exist on more diverse platforms. The first results from our Save Point Report are a great indicator of where the industry is investing, with games hosting more complex and detailed art work and models. While AI is increasing its impact on game development, this only increases the need for skilled artists who can work alongside AI to create amazing results.