Connect with the top game leaders in Los Angeles at GamesBeat Summit 2023 this May 22-23. register here.
John Riccitiello is excited about AI enough to sit down by Aldora.io Joost van Dreunen and chat about it at the GamesBeat Summit. Riccitiello’s history of accurate bets on technology is enough to make you want to pay attention.
“I remember the last time I was so excited about the future when a technology was successful,” says Riccitiello. “It’s the internet. I think the internet is going to be a really big thing. Right now, I’ll tell you I’m excited about AI.”
Riccitiello, during his time at Electronic Arts, was confident that the Dreamcast had no legs. He was right. More recently, he doesn’t see a bright future in things like Web3, blockchain or the Metaverse that others are envisioning. According to him, he can see the individual parts but doesn’t believe they fit perfectly together to lead to any kind of change in the industry.
“This doesn’t make me extremely smart,” says Riccitiello. “It made me a history student. I can see components that are not there.
History student or not, Riccitiello was right. Much. So the fact that he’s excited about AI is really remarkable. Different things? They will find their feet, eventually. AI, at least in Riccitiello’s eyes, is something that can change the world.
It also shows in his work at Unity. Despite going through many rounds lay offUnity is make a profit as a public company — and is using AI to do that. Riccitiello sees a huge use case for AI. He believes that AI will become an important part of content creation in general.
He also believes that AI will expand the game industry in a huge way, similar to how the internet did and how mobile games did.
Unity’s Barracuda Project
Unity worked on it. Unity’s Barracuda project has been around for over half a decade. The big problem with creative AI right now, at least as a customer, that’s all. You must be a customer. They’re all a bit expensive, which is a big barrier to entry.
The Barracuda project is trying to solve that problem by uploading everything directly to your device. If everything is happening locally, you don’t need to pay for a service. According to Riccitiello, the runtime used by Project Barracuda is widespread – it is on more than 4 billion devices globally.
It and other types of artificial intelligence will completely change and change the landscape of the game industry. Despite the high hopes Riccitiello has, he’s clear on one thing. No matter how useful AI is now, it can’t be a substitute for actual human effort.
“Be clear,” Riccitiello said. “Nobody generates the final code in one go. Or frankly, that art is worth it. It still needs a lot of iterations.
GamesBeat’s Faith when covering the game industry as “where passion meets business.” What does that mean? We want to let you know how important the news is to you — not just as a decision maker at the game studio, but as a fan of the game. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy interacting with it. Explore our Briefings.
