Ghostwriter (Ubisoft)
Not only the high-tech industry uses AI to make work easier.
This phenomenon also reaches the gaming industry, and it seems that Ubisoft is among the first triple A companies to announce its use.
Meet the "Ubisoft Ghostwriter" (Ubisoft Ghostwriter).
This is actually an AI tool that the gaming giant will use to write lines of text for characters in its games.
More true for the many NPCs (Non Playable Characters) found in all of its open world games.
This technology was created by the development and research branch which is considered to be part of the division responsible for Assassin's Creed.
Ubisoft stated that the AI will mainly help the writers with an initial draft of lines of text for the characters that the players will interact with.
According to them, it will be able to offer much more variety and different variations for different dialogues.
Ubisoft stated that Ghostwriter should make it easier for the writing team so that they can invest more in writing the main and secondary plots of the campaigns, and less in what it called "repetitive actions".
With the wide scope of games today - these are huge open worlds that contain hundreds of thousands of characters.
Therefore, this may certainly be perceived as a very repetitive and exhausting task, but it is also an extremely important technical aspect.
After all, open world games (the best ones) rely on their ability to draw players into the depth of the experience.
And the many characters that comprise this virtual universe are a very essential part.
Especially the different ways they talk and behave.
Watch Dogs: Legion: One example of a Ubisoft game that contained thousands of characters in the open world.
Each one was playable (photo: official website, Ubisoft)
Will it be helpful or harmful?
The unveiling of this technology comes after a rather shaky time at Ubisoft.
Investors were not happy with the latest financial reports, and at the beginning of the year the company announced a wave of cuts, layoffs and changes that included a focused restructuring of the entire organization.
It postponed Skull & Bones for the sixth time, canceling a total of seven games. Three of them were already in development and more have not been announced. As a result, it is expected to incur losses totaling $537 million for research and development costs for all canceled projects.
If all this was not enough, the company's employees were also fed up with management and threatened to go on strike. The last two years have not been particularly fruitful for Ubisoft, and the two games The only big ones it released (Assassin Creed Valhalla and Far Cry 6) didn't have the past glory of their predecessors.
In light of all this situation, it seems that the tool should mainly ease the pocket of Ubisoft.
It does require human interaction and editing, but it mainly shows that the company thinks about optimization first.
Even when streamlining comes at the expense of narrative and reliable world building in the quality of its games.
There is some kind of joke hidden here about the replayability of Ubisoft games.
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The responses were not long in coming
Industry insiders didn't necessarily like this announcement from Ubisoft.
Elena Pierce from the team of writers of Santa Monica (the studio that developed the God of War series) stated that she would prefer that companies invest more money in recruiting more writers, than in developing such tools.
Corey Barlog (director of God of War) just posted a meme of a worried Kratos.
Many writers joined the protest and expressed their displeasure.
Gearbox's Sam Winkler disagreed with the claim that it would save writers time, especially given that the whole business still requires human intervention.
He also noted that writing these lines of text is considered the first job of many writers in the industry, and is included on everyone's resume.
Other writers agreed with him that it was a junior position that could provide opportunities for a lot of beginning writers.
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