EA is already using AI in their games, and they don’t care what we think about it

It seems increasingly clear that the biggest debate that video games will have over the next decade (at least) will be about Artificial Intelligence. We are still determining where it fits, where it doesn’t, which jobs it will take away, whether it will be used to eliminate crunch, or if games made entirely by humans will be perceived as having greater value by gamers. For now, Electronic Arts wants to be part of the conversation and has already taken the lead over the rest of the industry.

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AI in EA

While not the most important game in their catalog, EA Sports College Football 25, is still a real phenomenon in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people have bought the $100 version to gain early access to the game. But of course, no matter how much it is going to sell, EA still needs to recreate 11,000 different players, which is no small feat. If a little machine can do it, even better, right?

It was absolute necessary for this game to have these 11,000 players, for which they reached a prior agreement with the actual players—of $600 and a copy of the game. According to the CEO of EA, “without AI we could not have delivered this game at the level we have, even if we had given the team many, many years of development.”

In addition to creating the 11,000 heads (later retouched by the team), the game also has AI trained on real football data to create an “authentic” gameplay, which would not have been possible even three years ago. It is worth remembering that the CEO of Electronic Arts also said that NFTs were the future, so we will have to see to what extent his invention succeeds.

Let’s not forget that they have laid off hundreds of people without touching the director’s annual millions. Perhaps the goal is to use AI for absolutely everything. Selling millions of games is great, but keeping employees happy is secondary for these companies. Cheaper production costs with higher profits— that’s the key. The rest doesn’t matter.

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