The Numbers Are In—Gamers Are Against AI

Ross Burton at Game Oracle has run the numbers and concluded in a post on the website that the use of AI in game development hurts the sales numbers of that game. Not by a small margin either. You’re looking at about half the number of sales for a game that uses AI compared to a game that doesn’t.

This study relies on developers following Steam’s requirement to disclose if AI was used at any point in a game’s development, and if so, how it was used. However, Steam is quite strict about this matter, and even looking at samples that Burton could find with those disclosures shows that AI hurts games more than it helps them.

If you’ve been following the gaming communities as AI continues being pushed by companies in various capacities, then this finding from Burton doesn’t come as a surprise. AI, in its current form, can’t replace human creativity, and part of that is from the way that AI is trained on human-made content. When you look at all the layoffs in gaming happening at the same time as pushes for AI, the negative attitudes toward it only grow.

Negativity Toward AI in the Gaming Space

Well, negativity toward AI isn’t unique to the gaming space, but the people in these spaces are vocal about their dislike. Quantic Foundry conducted a survey with 1.75 millions gamers responding to it, and of that group, 85% of respondents had an attitude toward AI in gaming that was below neutral, which ranges from slightly negative to very negative. Very negative was actually the category that received the most responses, with 62.7% of respondents choosing it.

Larian, the studio behind the massive hit Baldur’s Gate 3, received backlash over a statement about the use of generative AI in their upcoming Divinity game. CEO Swen Vincke then released a clarifying statement that tempered the outrage by saying to Polygon that no gen AI content would appear in their games without them owning the data it was trained on, and that it would be used as a way to speed up the development process rather than as a tool to use as a replacement for human developers.

Feelings toward AI in gaming are likely fueled by the overall state of the industry as well, especially with all the layoffs happening. Even in a Variety article from earlier this year, an estimated one-third of workers in the industry were laid off between 2023 and 2025. That number has only increased, with Bungie being the latest studio to cut employees.

Gaming is in a tough place right now for anybody who works in the field, and the fear of being replaced is real. However, as gamers continue to make their stance on the use of AI clear, there might be a point in the future—hopefully near future—where companies have to realize that human-created games are more profitable in the long run.

(featured image: Shift Up Corporation)

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