Larian Studios boss Swen Vincke shared some of his thoughts on generative AI technology in a recent interview with GameSpot. While other major creators are concerned the technology could eventually replace humans, Vincke doesn’t necessarily share that concern.
It’s not that Vincke is entirely against using AI and even generative AI in development for Larian Studios. He understands that it could eventually make a developer’s work go faster, but he stops short of saying that it would actually make developing a game take less time.
“I think the naive thing is to think that it will shorten them [development times]. I think that it’s an age old truth, if you give a developer two years, they’re going to take three. The same thing will be the case here, with what you’re going to give them in terms of abilities to do stuff . If they have the ability to do things faster, they’ll just do more, which is actually what you want.“
But when it comes to the question of humans being replaced by generative AI technology just generating whole sections of games or entire games even to ship, Vincke doesn’t think that’ll happen. Nor does he think it’s advisable to operate in that way, where generative AI is doing everything for you.
“I don’t think you would have a competitive advantage if you do, because that is what’s going to be available to everybody, right,” Vincke said.
“If the baseline goes up because generation is available to everybody, fine, that’s a new reality that we’re in. But you’re still going to want to create something special on top of that. I think that’s where teams like us will make a difference, we’re a very boutique team. We’re actually crafting the situations and the flow of the story by hand, it’s a thing that we do.“
“When we talk to people about it, this is always the discussion. ‘Oh my god, our jobs are going to disappear,’ and, no, but you’re just going to work differently, potentially. But you’re still going to be making a difference.”
