Ok, as someone who has preferred to stay away from really talking about early access type of titles, it was sort of difficult to not see the early access launch news over this past weekend regarding Pocketpair, Inc’s “pets with guns survival game”, Palworld.
The games Steam concurrency and unit sales information were being constantly highlighted by the developer/publisher, Pocket Pair. Pocket Pair, Inc (stylized as POCKET PAIR, INC or sometimes Pocketpair) is a small indies Japanese studio located in Tokyo (near Gotanda/Shinagawa). This also isn’t their first early access title on Steam. They also have Craftopia (which is also a survival RPG sans the pets with guns part) which went into early access in September 2020. They also have a battle-card game on Steam called Overdungeon that was launched in August 2019 (it was previously in early access starting in November 2018). The caveat with the latter was that it went without any updates for 4 years (Rock Paper Shotgun had a short article about the reasons the developer gave regarding that lapse).
Now Palworld has been getting some pretty positive reviews and by all accounts, is a complete and fun game which accounts for why it has been this hit (it sort of reminds me of the uptake that PUBG had). The $29.99 title (which was 10% off for this weekend), seems a little steep for an indies title. The key points again are that the game does seem fully fleshed out (albeit with some issues like wonky pet AI and various bugs) and more importantly, actually fun to play.
Still, there are a few folks who aren’t happy with the developer Pocket Pair for putting out yet another early access title, while their first one (Craftopia), is still in early access. According to those who purchased that game, the updates also slowed down to a point where some thought it had turned into abandonware (which prior to Overdungeon’s update in earlier 2023, was also thought to had been abandoned). There are also accusations of plagiarism (with generative AI creating edits of artwork derived from Pokemon).
I’m just going to leave that last part for the actual legal professionals to delve into but from what I can see, there aren’t any DIRECT copies of Pokemon assets. But this small company is fully onboard with utilizing generative AI based on what the CEO has said publicly in the past (documented in the preceding link above). I personally haven’t yet commented about AI (being used in the gaming industry on the development side) since that’s a whole can of worms. But I did note my feelings about Web3 in game development (it boils down to “kill it with fire”). There are parts of AI/ML where I believe it would be a good thing (outside of the gaming industry); advanced robotics that eliminate some of the repetitive/mundane tasks in manufacturing and supply chain logistics for example. I’m much less enthusiastic though when it comes to robots being in service sector roles (like in those experimental convenience stores that have no human personnel). Nonetheless, I’m going to go off on a tangent for a bit.
GDC 2024 published the results of their developer survey (as that will also serve as material for the conference when it gets underway in March); it’s no surprise AI is one of the topics that was brought up. IMHO, the use of generative AI needs to be balanced. Unfortunately, corporate executives see the technology as yet another way to reduce personnel expenses. One of the things that caused me to leave the world of senior management in tech when I did (just prior to modern mobile really taking off after the iPhone was released) was that I disagreed with how many executives/management view most of the rank and file as being highly replaceable (nothing that training can’t address while ignoring the fact that it can be costly to lose actual expertise/knowledge). The gaming industry is one of the worst in this regard because they tend to have some of the greediest c-suites around.
When it comes to the use of AI, we’ve already seen pushback in the film industry (writers and performers making noise about how generative AI is used when it comes to how stories/scripts are done or how a performers likeness/voice is used). Over time, I’ve come to value the actual human element when it comes to the arts because that is what gives a piece of art/music/writing/etc, it’s actual soul. I’ve played around with generative AI tools (like Adobe Firefly) just to see how far the tech has come; more specifically the image generation part as opposed to the other tools that are useful for the actual editing/post-processing type of tasks. While what is pumped out tends to look good (depending on source data), there’s a subtle “sameness” to that artwork; it’s often times too perfect and doesn’t really have its own personality (which is courtesy of the actual human touch when it comes to drawing, painting, photography).
As for actual audio/visual representation (i.e. deep fake tech), that’s a much larger legal issue. I do feel strongly that corporate entities should not be allowed to simply use anyone’s likeness without permission (and that even if one is okay with it, I believe there should be legally binding standards that are in place as to what is permissible, and what isn’t). I know this past summer, there were some concerns in the voice acting community (in the west) regarding the use of generative AI, and how it could affect their livelihoods. Again, I feel strongly about the actual human element when it comes to artists. While one can argue that this is just how it is (especially as the tech gets better where it will even be able to do vocal emotion as expressively as a person can), I also don’t agree with giving corporations (which have turned into this profit at all costs mentality) a license to just throw away the actual role of people (while giving us nice sounding rhetoric that makes it seem like that increased efficiencies/productivity, will benefit everyone; the reality is that it benefits mostly the people at the top).
As a society, we’ve never been good at moderating tech advancements (most corporate executives have weaponized it for their own selfish motives). We’ve also had people with ulterior motives early on in the lifecycle, pushing for little to no oversight (so as to not stifle innovation). Government’s themselves are also too slow (elected officials tend to be woefully out of touch/behind in their understanding) to be effective in coming up with actual reasonable regulations (plus too much corporate lobby money makes its way into politician’s campaign coffers in the US because it’s been allowed by the Supreme Court with the Citizen’s United ruling).
It remains to be seen how much of a fad AI will also be when it comes to in-game usage. It’s like that Replica Studio’s demo where you can interact with NPC’s where it takes your voice input and the NPC responds with conversational responses. I can see tutorial and instructional value in utilizing AI this way. But I don’t see it being worthwhile to expend development resources on having an extremely realistic level of social interaction with NPC’s in a game because for most players, they aren’t going to waste a lot of time having conversations with these NPC’s (unless it’s a life sim type of game). As for AI being used to have NPC’s being usable as party members for combat, that isn’t really anything new. Most games have been using AI for bosses/mobs (aggro, movement tracking, performing offensive and defensive combat, etc) and/or for usually very stiff/robotic NPC escort style quests. Where modern AI could help is with multiplayer titles that have lost player population, or to provide an option to have parties in MMO’s filled out, while making escort style quests feel more natural.
But digressing back to the topic of this post, it’s likely that part of Palworld’s development was helped in part by the previous development of Craftopia along with the use of generative AI. I don’t know if the company CEO understands the negative perception of having a prior early access title (that is in the same survival genre) that came out in 2020 that has yet to leave early access, while launching another survival title in early access 3 years later. If Palworld wasn’t as fleshed out (albeit with bugs) and fun as it is (based on most reviews), there would no doubt be a more negative take on the company (and the game).
