Sean Murray, managing director at Hello Games, the studio behind No Man's Sky, has stated he is in no hurry to adopt generative artificial intelligence technologies, preferring to maintain the studio's established methods of game development. Murray drew a parallel between the current AI discourse and the studio's approach to returning to office work after the COVID-19 pandemic, advocating for a wait-and-see strategy.
"Let’s just hold back, stay working from home, and let everyone else f*ck it up," Murray recalled saying during discussions about post-pandemic studio operations. He intends to apply a similar philosophy to the integration of generative AI, observing how the industry norm evolves over the coming years.
Murray, who previously worked at Criterion Games, noted the industry's focus on new technologies. He referenced reports about companies like EA potentially leveraging AI to offset financial obligations, stating, "And they’re like, don’t worry, we’re going to save billions because we’re going to all use AI. Right? And I sort of sit there and think, cool, good luck. You know, let’s see how that works out. I will watch from afar."
Recent months have seen significant video game releases, including remakes of titles like Tomb Raider and the new Crazy Taxi, face criticism from players for incorporating generative AI in their development processes. Concerns about the quality of AI-generated content, often termed "slop," and the difficulty developers have in clearly articulating the technology's benefits have contributed to player apprehension.
Murray predicts that AI will not fundamentally alter the core difficulties inherent in game development. "I think making video games is really hard and I think people are going to learn that it‘s still really hard and the hard things are still hard, of making a game feel really nice to play," he commented. He concluded by expressing his personal satisfaction with Hello Games' current trajectory: "My day to day role is let’s just enjoy making games the way we’ve always made games. And like that’s still working for us and we still enjoy it."