Game Developers Concerned About Ethics of AI in Gaming Industry: GDC Survey

Intan Rakhmayanti Dewi, CNBC Indonesia

Tech

Monday, 01/22/2024 22:00 IWST

Photo: Infographics/ Distribution of Unemployment in Indonesia/ Edward Ricardo

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The organizers of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) have released their annual survey on the State of the Game Industry.

As many as 84 percent of more than 3,000 respondents said they were somewhat or very concerned about the ethics of using generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the gaming industry.

The survey results outline the reasons for developers’ concerns, citing reasons that include the potential for AI to replace human workers and exacerbate layoffs, or expose developers to possible copyright infringement complaints. Developers are also concerned that the presence of AI could extract data from their own games without their consent.

The GDC survey breaks down developer sentiment regarding AI by job type. Respondents who work in more technical fields such as marketing, programming and business generally think that AI will have a positive impact on their work. Meanwhile, respondents who have creative jobs such as art, narrative and quality assurance felt that AI would have a negative impact on their work.

“I think changing someone’s job completely is a real concern,” wrote an anonymous respondent, quoted from The Verge, Monday (22/1/2023).

“AI must be used to increase capabilities, not reduce the workforce,” he continued.

The choice of video game engine software was one of the main topics discussed in the survey. Thirty-three percent of those surveyed use Unity or Unreal Engine in development.

At the same time that the survey was conducted, Unity announced a runtime fee policy that shocked the industry and angered a number of indie developers, before the policy was eventually reversed. In light of these events, a third of developers surveyed said they had considered switching or replacing game engine software.

“We’ve considered switching to Godot, or making [mesin permainan] ourselves, so we don’t have to worry about shady business practices or shareholder desires,” one anonymous response quoted in the survey said.

As the pandemic began to subside, companies implemented a return to office (RTO), which some developers said had a negative impact on the industry as a whole.

More than a quarter of developers have some kind of mandatory return-to-office policy. In the quarter, 40 percent reported working at AAA studios versus 16 percent at indie studios.

While return-to-office policies range from a full five-day work week to hybrid schedules, the survey found that the implementation of mandatory RTO resulted in dissatisfaction from developers.

“A large majority opposes a 3-day RTO mandate, but company leaders feel they know best,” read one response.

“Wave after wave of resignations, loss of enthusiasm. This is because we’ve proven that we can make games from scratch, while working from home during a pandemic, and people don’t understand why proof isn’t enough.”

Apart from AI, developers also have concerns about the layoff crisis occurring in this industry.

More than a third of respondents reported that they had been impacted by layoffs either personally or at their companies.

However, this survey was conducted in September 2023 just as Epic Games announced it would lay off more than 800 employees and before layoffs at studios Unity, Embracer Group, and Bungie.

Fifty-six percent of respondents felt that layoffs were occurring at their own studios and according to those surveyed, the large number of layoffs were the result of a post-pandemic course correction.

“Studios are growing too fast during the pandemic and people are spending less money on gaming during a cost of living crisis,” read an anonymous response.

Dom Tait, research director at Omdia, GDC’s research partner for the survey, wrote that the current wave of layoffs comes from companies adjusting spending levels to return to pre-pandemic levels.

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