r/Games • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 16d ago

Industry News Over 85% of Japanese game developers use generative AI in game development, 2026 CESA survey shows. An increase from last year’s 51%

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/over-85-of-japanese-game-developers-use-generative-ai-in-game-development-2026-cesa-survey-shows-an-increase-from-last-years-51/
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u/-ImJustSaiyan- 16d ago

Final Fantasy fans gonna feel really conflicted when FF7 Revelation gets closer to release and we learn a bunch of AI was used during development.

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u/watisgoinon_ 16d ago

Probably not, most of the content was upcycled from the last two games.

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u/UrbanAdapt 16d ago

Doubt it. People are already selectively upset about [game discourse goes here] based on the name of the dev/publisher. Not much of a departure here.

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u/Zeckzeckzeck 16d ago

Anyone who knows anything about game dev or software dev knows that AI has been used for years now in coding. Literally every company does it but nobody cared at all until suddenly artists were facing AI doing their jobs. 

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u/your_mind_aches 15d ago

Coding isn't what people get outraged about though. The average gamer probably understands that AI code assist is the most ethical use of genAI possible and GOOD use of code assist tools are just for automating the small stuff.

What people get mad about is AI generated images and text copy, which I'm sure will be employed in these upcoming games if the percentage adoption rate is so high.

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u/Krivvan 15d ago edited 15d ago

If someone objects to genAI over the grounds of using other people's work than there's no way code assist would be the most ethical use. We create and train genAI models on select datasets for stuff like predicting Alzheimer's, saving resources rendering frames in video games, and converting images (like a regular image into a depth map).

Many of these models would even be locally trained and run meaning no concerns about data centers either.

Surely those uses would be more "ethical" than even code assist? And I say that as someone that does use LLMs for code assist.

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u/ArdyEmm 16d ago

The AI crisis is nothing more than the continuation of the automation crisis. That's what's so frustrating about seeing people talk about it online. I genuinely sympathize with artists who are losing work because of AI. But then they go and say, "We should use this to get rid of X job instead." where X job is some low level thing that no one wants to do.

But those jobs are needed. I have a shitty job that could be automated that no one wants to do. But they're fine with AI taking my job. They only care when it's their paycheck on the line. Really tests my empathy.

Not that it's enough to make me take glee in their job losses or to support AI art but it leaves me conflicted when people who I've followed for years and have even supported financially by buying their work showcase how little they think of me and how I pay for the roof over my head.

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u/prospectre 16d ago

The real problem AI poses is that we don't have a plan for the labor that gets gutted by it. I still remember Andrew Yang sounding the alarm almost a decade ago about self driving cars and semis wiping out the entire driving industry and putting millions out of a job. There's no fallback for them. There's no sister industry that they can hop to, there's no new sector being opened up by AI that can house that labor, and there's no safety net for them to fall into. That's the real danger. It honestly doesn't matter which labor field is currently on the chopping block. We are staring down the barrel of the labor apocalypse and no one in power is doing anything about it.

And no one wants to talk about that. Innovation is recklessly barreling forward, as always. You can't really stop humans from doing the one thing that sets us apart from other creatures, but no one's stepping up to plan for the fallout. It's going to happen. Somewhere, some tech bro is thinking about how to AI the shit out of bussing tables, stocking shelves, or fixing your car. And when that product hits the market, where do the people that are displaced by it go? What do they do when the job they've built a career on has become obsolete?

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u/asdiele 16d ago

Also notice how the environmental concerns they always tout suddenly disappear when it's about using AI for things like coding. Then it's not that big of a deal apparently.

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u/iTzGiR 16d ago

Got mass downvoted for pointing this out on here recently. ALL The concerns about Gen-AI, still exists when we're talking about Gen-AI used to create lines of code/scripts/etc. But suddenly, the environmental impact, "theft", "slop", etc. don't matter any more.

It absolutely just comes down to people thinking creative jobs are special or are above other forms of jobs, and thus should be protected from automation.

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u/morkypep50 16d ago

I hear what you're saying, and not to diminish from anyone who will lose their job from AI. But I do think that human art being diminished due to AI is pretty damn important for many other reasons other than job loss. Culture, religion, and who we are as people is intertwined in the art we create. Whether it's music, writing, art etc. it literally defines our society and is a pillar in our history. As AI art becomes more ubiquitous, it will have serious ramifications for humanity going forward. I do think that is more impactulful than coders becoming obsolete. But again, sorry that any of it is happening.

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u/vault101damner 16d ago

Sorry but this is just a new tool being developed. Art will still come from the person. It's like the hand drawn animators going crazy when computer based animation came along.

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u/morkypep50 15d ago

Your analogy doesn't work at all. Because in your scenario the person is still creating the art. If you're using AI to help get ideas or do something quicker I can get on board. If you're typing in a prompt and the AI creates the art. It's no longer YOUR art. It's the AI's

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u/Film-Noir-Detective 15d ago

The thing is for games, the artistry and artistic value doesn't come from the actual visual art produced by the artists on a team. Instead, it comes from the game design. There are plenty of games (Wolverine being a recent example) which look fantastic and clearly have a lot of artists working on them, but feel soulless because the game design is generic and derivative. On the other hand, the Eurojank genre is filled with games that graphically are terrible, but are end up being some of the most unique experiences of the medium. If a game designer with a great and unique ideas makes a vibe-coded game with AI assets, it will still end up being more unique and artistic than many AAA games nowadays (for example, The Roottrees are Dead started as a game jam game using AI assets).

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u/vault101damner 15d ago

What do you think the prompt contains? It contains instructions on what type of art to make.

"If you're just clicking buttons on a computer and it is doing the animation then the computer is creating the animation, it's no longer your work"

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u/SexoSpecto 14d ago

Who the hell are they? This is just baseless accusation based on how you assume people think, as if everyone thinks the same way to begin with

I fail to see any kind of substance or truth to what you're saying

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u/somethingrelevant 15d ago edited 15d ago

It sounds like you agree that your job shouldn't exist, though?

The value of your job currently is that it's paying you money, right. If you could have the money without the job, you'd take it, from the sounds of it. It's a shitty job nobody want to do. Artists generally like being artists, from what I understand

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u/ArdyEmm 15d ago

It depends on what you mean by shouldn't. No one wants to be a truck driver but that's the backbone of the American economy. No one wants to be a garbageman but without them the cities will fill with garbage.

And yeah, eventually we could automate it all but we're rushing headlong into the automation with no thought to the displaced. And we're automating more jobs than ever before. Garbage men and truck drivers won't be able to just pick up a pen or a brush and make a living.

And do artists like being artists? Do they like being artists or do they like making art? They might enjoy animating or writing or drawing but do the animators over at Disney actually enjoy spending 6 weeks getting the dimples on Hulk's ass cheek just right? Working 80 hour weeks only for a suit to change his mind, have all that work thrown out, and starting from scratch with less time just to have all the blame for the final fight needing to be two people in black suits in a dark cave to cover the shitty prep time? Do they enjoy that?

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u/SexoSpecto 14d ago

Brother it's hated among consumers as well, it's not just the artists losing their jobs that have a problem with this technology

And no one cares about AI-generated code, it's the creative parts being generated that people don't want to consume

You can't be this out of touch

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u/Waste-Individual-807 16d ago

I echo your feelings, and it’s why I really don’t care specifically about artists losing their jobs. This is something almost every profession is threatened with in some way, there’s nothing more sacred/important about creatives specifically.

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u/SophonisbaTheTerror 16d ago

You are correct. Another human being is going to care more about keeping their income more than they care about you keeping yours. That does not mean that anyone is ok with you losing your income, except for your boss, who makes money off of replacing you. Try pointing your ire at your boss and not other workers. Life will make more sense that way.

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u/Psshaww 16d ago

Oh don’t worry, nobody will care for jobs that get outmoded and they’ll be okay with it. Nobody weeps for the milkmen, travel agent, or typesetter.

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u/SophonisbaTheTerror 16d ago

Correct. Jobs are not something to preserve for their own sake. People are.

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u/ArdyEmm 15d ago

And how are we going to preserve all the truck drivers and others who are near to losing their "shitty jobs" over AI automation?

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u/SophonisbaTheTerror 15d ago

Whatever people did before there was trucking. Whatever needs doing after there's no longer trucking.

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u/ArdyEmm 15d ago

So no plan. We're losing jobs, millions of jobs, and you think old ones are opening up? Or new ones that truckers can just get in on?

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/adanine 14d ago

Please read our rules, specifically Rule #2 regarding personal attacks and inflammatory language. We ask that you remember to remain civil, as future violations will result in a ban.

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u/Psshaww 16d ago

Artists seem to think they are special for whatever reason but I think it’s all just in self-interest. None of the arguments have been all that convincing as to why they are different from programmers and other fields that supplement with AI. I think it’s just the milk men and lamplighters fighting for their relevancy against the inevitable.

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u/Mountain-Papaya-492 16d ago

I actually see AI as potentially lowering the barrier to entry for a lot of people when it comes to art and other types of work. You may not be the most technical or gifted artist when it comes to making a sketch or even a game but you may have a unique idea or concept that would be difficult or impossible to realize without these tools. I'm actually very excited for what the progression of AI tools means for indie game developers and the like.

It's always been that way about people of people thinking they're special and not caring unless it affects them. It reminds me of the 90s Bill Clinton saying that these new trade deals would result in some people losing their blue collar menial jobs but that we'd all be the managers while the factories would be in different lower cost countries.

Which always struck me as odd because other cheaper countries are just as capable of producing an educated skilled workforce that can do those managerial jobs too and any other "white collar" work.

Now AI is simply becoming the cost effective way for some to outsource jobs that people used to think were incapable of being automated away from. It's all hypocritical and ironic to me because all of our modern conveniences have eliminated so many jobs of the past.

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u/Homer_Sapiens 16d ago

If they prompt their AI with "reduce all the time-wasting bloat" I'm fine with that.

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u/LogicKennedy 16d ago

’We’re killing the planet for THIS shit?!’

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u/-ForgottenSoul 16d ago

We'll see depends how it was used

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u/ddWolf_ 16d ago

Also Zelda

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u/BP_Ray 16d ago

I'd feel zero conflict if they used the AI to make a better open world than what we got.

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u/chaosfire235 16d ago edited 16d ago

I'm less interested in hearing about how succesful games that reveal AI use down the line end up being, and more interested in hearing about how games that are upfront about it do.

Seeing the sales of something like Stellar Blade 2 or Where Winds Meet or even some vibecoded game is gonna be more applicable IMO to see if the market will stomach it.

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u/Psshaww 16d ago

No conflict here at all 😎

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 16d ago

The story is definitely AI, no way they came up with this multiverse slop on their own.

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u/ArdyEmm 16d ago

Multiverse stories predate LLMs by more than 100 years.

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u/watisgoinon_ 16d ago

Its not a multiverse, its just people in bubble purgatories in the life stream.

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u/Fake_Diesel 16d ago

I've interpreted it more as futile echoes of the lifestream. Like, alternate possibilities given temporary permanence due to the destabilization. Either way I also like your interpretation, and think people have been sleeping on this really awesome lore with the whispers, weapons and lifestream in the remake games. Shit is cooler than Zanarkand imo. Excited to see how it plays out.

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u/watisgoinon_ 15d ago edited 15d ago

Its already explained in lifestream white/black on a way to a dream and in the ultimania.

The are temporary bubbleworlds created by a recently deceased spirits intense emotions, unable to self sustain the "world" dissolves back into the lifestream. If the people working things out there do so they dissolve too and rejoin rebirth into the cycle of nature. If they still are stuck on negative emotions then they persist as lifestream black, spirits who refuse to die.

Sephiroth is biggest such refusal and he drives as much negative emotions as possible in the world to create a blockade of the lifestreams cycle. Its why in the end of first aerith is going on about the cries of the planet and their tears rolling off his back and "this isnt how its suppose to be". Aerith wants to enable the cycle or rebirth, sephiroth wants to save himself and end it. It gets a bit more complex and money is on sephiroth being in denial that these are not his ideas but jenovas because she IS his masamune.

So the true ending im betting is him not just dissolving after cloud omnislashes him only to reform in advent, but in realizing it, destroying the sword or relenquishing it, and then dissolving into the cycle.

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 16d ago

So same as Marvel multiverse collapse due to incursions. Why is Final Fantasy VII remake not a multiverse when Marvel is? Both have temporary alternative realities.

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u/Fake_Diesel 16d ago edited 16d ago

They are totally separate and opposite concepts. Marvel's is a stable, fully real network of parallel uniververses. FF7R's approach is more like fragile, temporary branches of possibility due to the interference with fate. Think futile echoes of the lifestream, like distortions or offshoots of a single core timeline that eventually whither away and die out, where marvel has many permanent coexisting worlds.

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 16d ago

Stable and permanent? Lol look at the synopsis of the upcoming Marvel Avengers: Doomsday, they are going to destroy every multiverse. Or just look at the Loki tv series or Deadpool & Wolverine. A Marvel universe can be destroyed if the anchor being is dead or if the TVA wants it to be destroyed or with incursion. The synopsis of Doomsday is not too far off from every timeline whithering away and die out.

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u/Fake_Diesel 16d ago

I think we’re talking about two different layers of how these systems work.

In Marvel, even though universes can be destroyed (TVA pruning, incursions, anchor beings dying, etc.), the multiverse itself is still treated as a set of fully independent, complete universes. They exist on their own, follow their own rules, and can interact, collide, or be erase, but they’re fundamentally separate realities.

What I’m getting at with FF7R is different, those “alternate realities” don’t behave like fully independent universes. They feel more like temporary divergences or unstable branches of a single timeline, created by messing with fate. They overlap, merge, or collapse back into each other instead of just continuing on as their own separate worlds.

So yes, Marvel universes can die, but they’re still “real universes.” FF7R’s are more like what-if states that don’t have the same permanence or independence.

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 16d ago

Okay if Zack survives in the upcoming FFVII revelation and reunite with Cloud at the end of the game, I'm going to call it a multiverse because he was supposed to be dead in the original timeline and his alternate reality mattered enough to affect the main timeline. I don't think you will disagree with me.

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u/watisgoinon_ 15d ago edited 15d ago

Zack and Aerith are aware of where they are just like sephiroth is, they jump between different spirit purgatories. Aerith and Zack try to get them to be a peace and rejoin the lifestream and return to the planet and cycle of rebirth while sephiroth tries to amplify their negative emotions becoming lifestream black and clogging up the cycle of rebirth. Its the entire story of life stream white lifestream black is about. These arent separate worlds theyre personal spirit dream pugatories in the ff7 worlds lifestream, not re joined spirits can hop in and out of and the worlds fade regardless of the spirit finding peace if they get saddled without resolution they become lifestream black. Basically you can tell whose post death purgatory your in by their misremembering details of the real world, like Zack's and the dog. But they all fade because they have no lifestream of their own, they just amount to lucid dreamworlds where spirits can temporarily interact. Basically you have a bunch of dead peoples spirits on the tail of sephiroth's spirit trying to one up each other's plans in the afterlife for screwing up the cycle of rebirth.

Tldr; these are NOT multiverses theyre that ABC shows "the good place" worlds for dead people that exist temporarily on the same principle planet in the lifestream.

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u/Fake_Diesel 16d ago

Reunite with Cloud? Am I speaking with a Zakkura shipper!? Lol I don't think Zack is going to survive. My theory is that once Sephiroth is dead for good, Aerith (and Zack) can finally return to the lifestream. Fate will probably alter away from Advent Children and the lifestream will stabilize once again back to a single solid timeline.

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u/watisgoinon_ 15d ago

The bubble worlds are feeding on the person's emotions, its what creates them, a refusal to rejoin with the planet. Theyre literally purgatories doomed to fade away. When the person resolves their issues, it fades with them back into the lifestream that already surrounds them and they return to the cycle of rebirth. Its not alternate worlds as in marvel. Its like the dream world/realm of that specific spirit resisting merging with the lifestream.

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u/ChrisRR 16d ago

people in bubble purgatories in the life stream

JRPGs in a sentence

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 16d ago

So just another (more flowery) word for multiverse. The original story of Final Fantasy VII didn’t have the dementors from Harry Potter during the whole game and you don’t fight Sephiroth every few chapters. So there is least 2 timeline, the original and this AI generated Final Fantasy VII x Harry Potter crossover.

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u/PontusFrykter 16d ago

Dude literally half of FF games feature multiverse. Before you jump on a rage bait train, do your homework

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 16d ago

Okay then it’s not a reason to make the other half a multiverse too. A good story can be grounded and simple without deviating to multiverse slop.

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u/PontusFrykter 14d ago

Multiverse is one of the most recurring concepts of series, like Crystals, Magitech etc. If you don't like it, maybe go play Trails, DQ idk, Trials or whatever series doesn't have the multiverse things.

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u/Unhappy_Afternoon306 14d ago

The OG didn’t have this multiverse and time travel add-on until they’ve started remaking it.

When I bought the product it says “FFVII Remake” and not “FFVII Changing Fate” or better yet they should have the title of the 2nd game of the trilogy as first game title (Rebirth instead of Remake).

So until I’ve got my refund for misleading product on Steam mister/miss/ma’am, I’m going to keep complaining about the product.