From the development of the scenario to the launch on the market, all the stages of the development of a video game can potentially benefit from the contributions of the GEN AI.
Video game craftsmen are on the street! On February 13, 2025, the video game industry knew its first national strike. A dozen rallies were organized throughout France at the initiative of the Syndicate of Video Game Workers (STJV). In other demands: working conditions, the end of telework or threats to employment. Video game was one of the rare sectors of activity to experience an enchanted parenthesis during the COVIVS crisis – confinement obliges, the French played! – Who has closed since then, sales returning to normal. The studios then had to separate from the latest hires multiplying social plans. The Game Industry Layoffs site identified 14,600 layoffs in 2024.
While the sector crosses a difficult pass, the surge of generative AI could both be its life buoy, providing precious productivity gains, or accelerating job cuts by automating at all costs. On paper, the Gen AI can intervene at all stages of manufacturing a video game, from the development of the scenario to its launch on the market.
When the gaming experience becomes unique
In the field of narration, we know the ability of large language models (LLM) to generate textual content, which can serve as a outline for a future scenario or help formalize the codes of a game. With AI, the scenario can then adapt according to the player’s profile and propose more balanced difficulty levels, improving the gameplay.
The non-playful characters (NPC) doped at AI gain in realism. Goodbye the stereotypical reactions of the film Free Guy, the Bots interact more finely with the player, hold personalized dialogues or even behave differently over the action. Similarly, with the ability of the AI to generate audio, the soundtrack can change in order to respond to the player’s preferences. Not to mention the new immersive technologies such as haptic or olfactory devices bringing the senses of touch and smell.
AI can then help start the game by automating tests. Once the game is on the market, a chatbot ensures the first level of customer service or assistance to players by responding to recurring requests from the community. The AI can even, in the case of massively multi-playing games (MMORPG), detect cases of cheat or inappropriate attitudes. Ubisoft and Riot Games have teamed up to develop an anonymized database in order to train AI systems to identify toxic behavior in some players.
More impacted development professions
What are the real impacts of AI on the video game sector? Last April, the National Center for Cinema and the Animated Image (CNC) and the BearingPoint cabinet drawn up a cartography of the trades. It reveals that “certain professions are more likely to see their processes and work tools evolve significantly”. In this case, these are mainly development professions such as the Character Designer, the texture artist, the 2D/3D host and the sound or image editor.
While the video game industry is known for its hyperspecialization with a distribution of micro -field work – the composition of a character uses specialists in skeleton (rigging), skin (skinning) or movement. The AI could lead to more versatility and give birth to hybrid or even touches profiles.
“Today, AI is above all a tool that automates the most painful tasks, freeing from creation time to artistic profiles”, tempers Claire Di Felici, manager at BearingPoint for the Media, Culture & Entertainment sector. “By lightening the workload, AI can improve the working conditions of an industry known for its extended schedules.”
The arrival of AI in these development professions is, moreover, progressive. It is part of the classic skills in the profession. “New plugins appear in software that professionals already use as Maya or Unreal Engine,” continues Claire Di Felici. “These are not new tools that prevent them from starting from scratch.”
The consultant notes that this self -training is a usual reflex among video game experts who share their experiences on the discussion forums and feed on tutorials on YouTube. This population is also technophile, which facilitates its relationship to AI.
A sparing partner to challenge the game designers
AI even feeds the creation process. Tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion or Red Panda Ai, which generate images and now videos, can be used as Sparing Partner. “In the preparatory phases, the AI will generate or decline a character outline to challenge the games designers,” said Claire Di Felici. “This accelerates creative iterations and projecting yourself on the final rendering.”
The art of prompt is not given to everyone. To obtain a correct rendering, it is necessary to master the technical terms and the artistic references, indicating, for example, at the AI to use such type of focal, such a light source or such graphic style. Director of observation and prospective within AFDAS, the Sector Skills (OPCO) operator, Jean Condé abounds in this sense. “To prompt properly, you have to be in the business. AI will be able to produce a lot of content, but it is the informed eye of the professional who will be able to discriminate them,” he said.
According to him, the AI can bring productivity gains in a very competitive sector which will smooth themselves once all the studios have integrated this type of tool. “The major studios that have a qualitative reputation incorporate AI in small doses,” he continues. “Unlike small studios, especially in the world of RPG mobile games, see it as a way to industrialize production phases and reduce the marketing time.”
Wanting to be reassuring, Jean Condé is observed, for the time being, that a marginal impact of AI on employment. “There is no drop in recruitment or the volume of hours worked,” he notes. However, there is no question of doing the ostrich. “Having a delay in AI will be difficult to catch up. We see it in specialized schools, students naturally take up this type of tool when others are refractory. This fracture line is then found in business,” continues Jean Condé.
Associate artistic fiber and technical skills
Director of Popscreen Games, an RPG mobile game development studio, and a member of the Board Directorate of the National Video Games Union (SNJV), Davy Chadwick was interested in generative AI from the launch of Chatgpt at the end of 2022. “It is a major turning point, there will be a before and an after in the production of video games,” he admits.
His studio began to use Chatgpt for narration and translation. “At the start, the results were imprecise, today, they are completely usable,” said Davy Chadwick. AI also allows you to dynamically generate music. Regarding the special effects, it finds, for the time being, easier to use dedicated libraries.
For Davy Chadwick, the main contribution of the generative AI relates to the generation of graphic content. The diffusion models allow, among other things, to create environments, simple funds. “Everyone knows how to generate magnificent images in the Cyberpunk style. On the other hand, when it comes to taking into account production and integration constraints, it’s much more complicated,” points out Davy Chadwick. “To succeed in this challenge, it is necessary to associate the artistic fiber with solid technical skills. Those who have the double cap will be the masters of the world.”
These hybrid profiles will be all the more requested since Davy Chadwick expects the AI to release the field of possibilities. The No Man’s Sky game which generates algorithmic an almost infinite number of unique planets is, according to him, only a taste of what awaits us. “The AI on board our smartphone will be able to create new visual and sound worlds in real time. Each player will live a unique experience,” he concludes.
