The creation of smart contracts and Web3 interfaces has led to an entirely new play-to-a-en or non-fungible token (NFT) genre of video games. However, during the 2021 cryptocurrency bull market and his subsequent crash of 2022, many of this niche game experienced incredible ups and downs in terms of player numbers and trading volumes.
Despite this volatility, one Web3 gaming executive speaking to Cointelegraph said new innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) will make the genre better than ever.
Alex Connelly is Immutable’s CTO and developer of the Gods Unchained digital collectible trading card game and the Immutable X NFT platform. He told Cointelegraph OpenAI, an American research institute focused on AI that is dedicated to developing easy-to-use AI applications that can assist in a variety of tasks, and that the software enables new possibilities for Web3 games, He said it would allow developers to create better art, more challenging encounters, and better narration. It leads to a more immersive and richer experience for the player.
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According to Connelly, the area where his team is most focused on OpenAI applications is art. Traditionally, video game artists have had to create multiple versions of the same image. For example, we often needed multiple sizes of the same image, or slightly different versions that emphasized different parts of the artwork. This could lead to inefficiencies. But with OpenAI software, the artist will be able to experiment with having his AI create different versions of the artwork, allowing the artist to spend more time creating the original work.
A Challenging Player… But Not Too Much
Beyond the direct benefit of creating better art, Connolly said there are other areas where OpenAI could further improve the game in the future. One of the themes he’s been discussing with the team is creating an AI that can dynamically adapt to the player’s skill level, creating encounters that are sufficiently difficult and fun without being overwhelming. Connery said:
“We think we’re really excited about the potential for this technology to create more meaningful counterplay for your opponents. It’s tailored to the needs of the player. We believe we can create a very deep and immersive continuous learning curve for our players that is comparable to what we do.”
“I think that’s really important to make sure you don’t make a game that’s too easy for anyone to play against, or a game that’s too hard to be fun to play. That great curve. Find it and customize that player, which is a great use of this technology,” he added.
Of course, video game developers have always tried to create AI programs for computer opponents that provide the player with an appropriate level of difficulty. But Immutable executives say OpenAI offers a better approach compared to strategies used by developers in the past.
“A lot of what has been built in games so far has been what we call ‘manually-crafted’ AI, where the in-game opponent makes decisions based on a set of pre-programmed rules put in place by the programmer. think.”
Connelly continues: “‘We’re the AI playing the game. Is the goal of the AI to always win? To win about 50% of the time? To beat this player about 50% of the time? ” […] There are a lot of ambiguities and black boxes in the middle of that model. […] This new technology will actually allow people to create a more customized experience of the game. ”
Connelly says the new technology doesn’t just make it easier to create AI for computer-controlled opponents. He also leads to “more customized and personalized content, a full single-player experience.”
ChatGPT and GPT3 storytelling
One of the latest in OpenAI software is the Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, also known as ChatGPT. used to create Trade bots, blogs and even crypto tunes.
When asked if Immutable plans to use ChatGPT in their games, Connelly said the team is in the very early stages of thinking about ChatGPT because it’s so new. However, he said the team is experimenting with how to use his previous incarnation, GPT-3, to create an AI narrator that tells stories based on plays that occur within the card game. .
“We think there are some really great storytelling opportunities with this technology. For example, if you’re in a card game and you get a GPT-3 and you play the cards and you stitch them together into a story. I considered the idea of […] It is impossible for humans to write down a story that ties together the inputs of an entire game. When we’re talking about millions of games here, that’s just not possible, right?”
Despite this optimism, he cautioned that the team ran into a few twists when trying to implement the Narrator idea for this story. The team is still trying to find a way to put the right amount of narration into the card game, as it resulted in “spam” narration that distracted from the game.
“We did this thing that sounds cool. But when you actually play, they mess up. [players] Or they don’t resonate directly.We’re still finding the right balance.If we do this, how do we avoid creating a lot of spam content? I think there is a potential use for introducing a cost there so that people can continue to use […] A richer experience,” he said.
Web3 game developers adopting OpenAI
Connelly says Immutable isn’t the only company looking to improve games with the technology. He also sees partner developers releasing items on Immutable X showing increasing interest in experimenting with OpenAI.
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In his opinion, Web3 studios tend to be the most enthusiastic about using these new technologies compared to other studios. Every game he studio wants to use OpenAI to improve their games, but large studios are facing an “innovator’s dilemma” and are willing to risk implementing OpenAI features. It costs more, he says. Therefore, I expect that Web3 and NFT games will lead these technologies in the future.
