GenAI Doh: Throughout his career, Masahiro Sakurai has created some hugely successful game franchises, including Kirby and Super Smash Bros. Now the Japanese designer is joining the generative AI debate, arguing that LLM-based “stochastic parrots” don’t have what it takes to create truly original gaming IP.
In a recent interview with Japanese website Denfaminicogamer, Sakurai gave his informed opinion on how generative AI will impact the video game business. Developing new gaming “products” is becoming easier than ever, he said, but turning AI-generated slop into a profitable venture requires much more than a few chatbot prompts.
Sakurai explained that modern game designs usually result from direct comparison with what is already on the market. This gives developers and publishers an easy way to show customers what they get for their money.
In this regard, AI will make things much easier – and much worse for the gaming industry as a whole. According to Sakurai, generative AI will spark an explosion of similar games, but most of these copycat “productions” will end up being unprofitable.
The technology will certainly help mass-produce low-quality content, as most AI games replicate gameplay mechanics that players have already experienced elsewhere.
Sakurai is also concerned about the lack of truly creative projects in the growing wave of GenAI gaming slops. Developing a truly original game is beyond the capabilities of AI, he said, and extremely difficult for human designers as well. Citing Super Smash Bros., he noted that the first game in the series needed to take a truly novel approach to stand out from the traditional fighting game genre.
Sakurai’s views on game design and creativity are sure to fuel an already heated debate. According to a recent CESA survey, more than 85% of Japanese developers now use some form of LLM-based solution in their workflows.
For its part, Epic Games has argued that AI will play a role in almost all future game production, while paying PC customers are increasingly complaining about the impact of GenAI games on Steam’s Next Fest event.
This year’s Next Fest is suffering from the flood of AI on Valve’s digital platform, and users are now demanding an official “No-AI” filter to make interesting demos easier to discover.
Sakurai said Steam’s numbers show how current development trends are inflating the market. In 2010, Steam hosted a few hundred new releases per year, around 275. Today, more than 19,000 new projects launch on the platform every year. Generative AI will only drive these numbers higher.
