Vortex Gaming

Today (15th), Nexon Games' Executive Producer Yong-ha Kim gave a lecture on the theme of 'Two-Dimensional Game Development in the AI Era' at the G-CON 2024, the G-Star International Game Conference held at the BEXCO Convention Hall in Busan. PD Kim Yong-ha is currently in charge of developing 'Blue Archive' and 'Project RX' at Nexon Games' IO Headquarters.

Recently, Chai Haoyu, the co-founder of miHoYo, made a statement that 'If AI technology is introduced, game developers should consider changing jobs,' which caused a great ripple effect throughout the game industry. As the era of AI arrives, many stakeholders have become interested in how game developers should respond and how they will survive.

It was in this situation that PD Kim Yong-ha's lecture was held. A lot of people were interested in his lecture, who is actually developing games using AI at the forefront of the industry, and the G-CON lecture hall where the lecture was held was so crowded that even the aisle space between the seats was filled. Through this lecture, he pointed out the key points of two-dimensional game development and predicted how AI development will affect game development.

■ The key to 'two-dimensional game' development, "Differentiated worldview and attractive characters"

Executive Producer Kim Yong-ha first raised the issue of the need to rethink the definition of the genre 'subculture game'. PD Kim Yong-ha said, "Even if they share some similar characteristics, casual games or realistic games are often not classified as subculture games," and "Games with enthusiastic fandoms are technically subculture, but not all are classified as subculture games."

Executive Producer Kim Yong-ha said that in order to clarify the concept, he decided to use the term 'two-dimensional game' instead of the expression subculture game in that it is characterized by 'animation-style visual style'. He then cited a differentiated worldview and attractive characters as the most important elements in the development of 'two-dimensional games'. PD Kim Yong-ha emphasized, "In order to provide an experience that players can immerse themselves in, it is important to comprehensively design the setting of the game's worldview, the context of the story, and the interaction with the characters to maintain consistency."

■ “Despite the rapid development of AI, the quality is still insufficient”

The emergence of 'ChatGPT' in 2022 caused a global shock, and since then, generative AI technology has grown rapidly. In particular, the fields of image, music, and voice conversation generation are already showing results that are difficult to distinguish. Recently, beyond AI that performs only specific purposes, the emergence of 'Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)', an artificial intelligence with learning, understanding, and reasoning abilities similar to humans, is also being discussed.

There are concerns that if AGI appears, not only games but also the entire entertainment industry will be in danger. PD Kim Yong-ha said here, "Imagine the best AI director creating and showing me a new movie with the best AI actors that I would like every time," and said that things that he thought were in the realm of SF seem to be coming in just a few years.

However, it is pointed out that there are still limitations to applying AI to game development in earnest. This is because it does not meet the level of precision required in the field, or it is difficult to make detailed adjustments, making it impossible to obtain high-quality work. In addition, the cost of AI learning and operation is too high, which is a disadvantage that is difficult for general companies to bear. PD Kim Yong-ha diagnosed, "There were predictions that AI would rapidly advance and soon replace manpower, but it has not yet reached the stage where it can be fully utilized in the field."

■ ‘AI’ as a tool to support the creativity of workers

PD Kim Yong-ha actually introduced one by one the cases in which he attempted to incorporate AI technology in the development process of 'Blue Archive'. He tried to automatically generate character introduction animations by specifying the important areas of character illustrations and the center of gravity when moving cuts, but he said that it was more difficult to create a tool that could reflect practical feedback. In addition, by applying an AI solution that generates lip shape animations when inputting produced voice data, he also prepared a plan to generate lip-sync animations for the Blue Archive character 'Arona'.

Executive Producer Kim Yong-ha said, "AI will gradually be used in the work areas of not only game development but also all occupations," and diagnosed, "There is a great possibility that AI will be introduced into the worldview and character expression of two-dimensional games." He continued, "In an era where anything can be easily created, the importance of IPs with unique value will become even greater," and concluded the lecture by saying, "The most effective strategy is to leave repetitive tasks to AI and broaden the scope of work by brightening the worker's creativity and vision."

The following is a brief summary of the 'AI Era Two-Dimensional Game Development' lecture given by PD Kim Yong-ha on this day.

PD Kim Yong-ha introduced that he thinks there is still room for the question 'Will developers become extinct in the AI era?' and that he established the 'IO Headquarters' to find things that can be done right away and to respond and prepare early.

Nexon Games established the IO Headquarters in August, specializing in subculture game development. The IO Headquarters includes MX Studio, which is in charge of live development of Blue Archive, and RX Studio, which is developing the new 'Project RX'. About 200 developers are affiliated with the two studios, and PD Kim Yong-ha is in charge of the development of the two titles as the head of the IO Headquarters.

Finally, PD Kim Yong-ha said that he is operating the IO Headquarters with the ambition to fill the world with characters and bring the other world to reality, or to create a game that allows you to dive directly into the other world, and is waiting for talented colleagues to join, saying, "We need more 'human colleagues' for the other world dive, so please pay a lot of attention to Nexon Games' IO Headquarters," and finished the presentation.

After the lecture, a short Q&A session was held to answer questions from registered attendees. First, in response to the question 'What kind of insight should I develop in order not to be left behind in the AI era?', PD Kim Yong-ha advised, "There are many conversational AIs that can be used for personal work, so I hope you will strengthen your communication skills by communicating with AI and try using various AIs to develop your ability to convey your thoughts."

Secondly, in response to the question 'What kind of impact will there be if we can fully interact with AI characters?', he said, "There are already so many AI Vtubers coming out, and I think that if this continues, YouTubers will be the most replaced by AI," and "I think there will be many other interesting things happening."

Webzine InvenPark Kwang-seok Reporter
2024-11-15