Square Enix will 'aggressively' use AI for game development and publishing

Square Enix, the Japanese firm responsible for the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, pledges to use AI to help streamline its game development and publishing divisions. AI is taking the world by storm, and the creative arts could be shaken up with innovative new tools and methodologies for asset creation.

While the exact details are slim, video game developers may soon be armed with more efficient pipelines thanks to AI. Despite lofty promises from companies like Microsoft, who acquired new AI tools to help speed along the game dev process, the spectre of layoffs broods behind the scenes. Game devs are worried that these new automation tools could eliminate even more jobs at a time when workers are being squeezed by a merciless cost cutting market.

The video games industry laid off over 6,000 workers throughout 2023. Publishers like Electronic are optimistic about AI, but Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick warns that "artificial intelligence is an oxymoron" and that AI won't ever do the fine, granular and back breakingly iterative work of principal games development.

Others like Square Enix plan to go all in on any tools or innovations that can help streamline game creation. This includes AI, which has proven to be a controversial friction point among gamers and industry veterans. As it is for so many others these days, efficiency is the name of the game for Square Enix.

"We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions," Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu said in a recent New Year's letter to investors . Kiryu even says that this plan could help create "new forms of content" for users.

Maybe this refers to NFTs, some sort of blockchain integration, or perhaps even user generated content (UGC) economies. "In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities." These letters are notorious for over promising grand leaps in technology.

The previous Square Enix president pledged support for practically every buzzword laden acronym or tech breakthrough of our modern age, from AI and XR to NFTs and blockchain. Kiryu goes on to say that Square Enix will create a new "Grand Design," or a kind of over arching roadmap not unlike Sony's Mid Year plans or SEGA's ambitious Super Games pipeline..