Roblox to Add Generative AI Tools for Game Creation
Generative AI is impacting almost every product category and industry
Roblox announced Friday that it will introduce new generative AI features into its platform in order to “revolutionize creation on the platform, both by augmenting Roblox Studio to make creation dramatically faster and easier, and also by enabling every user on Roblox to be a creator.”
Making Better Games
Roblox is a proto-metaverse with 40 million games and 58.5 million daily active users. You can see how the generative AI features showcased in the YouTube video above could make it even easier to generate games, but, more importantly, make it easier for non-technical users to create better games. Daniel Sturman, CTO of Roblox, addressed these ideas directly:
Today a Roblox experience is created through a combination of 3D objects of various forms (constructive solid geometry, avatars, meshes, terrain, etc), connected in behavior through Lua scripting, and backed by a universal physics engine that provides core behavior on the platform. While the engine is an underlying portion of the platform, it is up to the creator to build or otherwise acquire everything in the experience. We see generative AI tools being applicable to each of these different creative processes. What we have already started to see through internal prototypes is that specialized generative AI tools can not only accelerate creator productivity, but can significantly drop the technical skill needed to bring ideas to life.
For example, some creators know how to code, but may have limited experience creating high-fidelity 3D models. Others may be more experienced with model design, but less experienced with code. In both cases, we see a future in which even a beginner (such as myself for example – I’m a terrible artist!) can get a running head start as they look to bring their imagination to life in a Roblox experience…
We are building a platform that will enable every user to be a creator – not just those comfortable with Roblox Studio and other 3D content creation tools. We believe that many experiences in Roblox will become creation experiences where one can create a new shirt, hat, an entire avatar; a house or even an entire experience – all from within another experience. This vision requires a set of tools significantly more accessible to a typical user than exists in any environment today – things like voice and text or touch-based gestures rather than intricate mouse and keyboard movements. Generative AI tooling can help make creation intuitive and natural for users and be directly embedded into experiences, allowing any of our 58.8 million daily users to create unique content that can be shared across the platform.
From the Technical to the Conceptual
Generative AI is rapidly changing our base assumptions about how the creation process works. A software developer’s workflow was typically to define or review the objective, define or review the software requirements, write the code, test the code, debug the code, refine the code, and deploy the code. Very often, the majority of the effort, and the productive contribution of the software engineer, was in writing the code.
With tools like GitHub Copilot, software developers will focus more on the beginning and end of their workflow. The technical steps of writing code can be handled by the AI machines, typically with fewer errors. A key skill will be setting up the software design properly to lead tools like Copilot to more accurately generate code aligned with the objectives and requirements. That will result in a shift in priority from technical to conceptual contribution by the developer.
Granted, developers will need to become better at code review because their role will involve more editing of code than creating it. That means they will need to learn how to assess the code design that the code generator implemented while reviewing and testing the output. It is a different process than reviewing code that you wrote because you don’t know all of the underlying assumptions the code generator is applying. This skill already exists in software development teams, but it is generally the domain of more seasoned developers. Again, it requires more conceptual reasoning and assessment skills before applying technical acumen.
Roblox is seeing this “revolution” as an opportunity. Technical skills fall into multiple categories in game development. Experts in 3D object development are rarely the same as those with skills in software code required to operate the game. Generative AI can help fill in those gaps while also making the process faster, even for experts.
In addition, the best games are not all about mechanics or stunning visual elements. Many games are truly differentiated by the core idea behind the game and the story it leads players through. Generative AI can help creatives without these technical skills to bring out higher-quality game experiences that enable their ideas and stories to shine. The more technical tasks can be automated, the more other skills will rise in importance.
New Features for Old Products
Earlier this week, we highlighted the new GitHub Copilot feature upgrades. Copilot is an entirely new product category that emerged from generative AI research. Similarly, AI writing assistants and text-to-image generators are new-to-the-world products. However, a big driver of generative AI adoption today is adding new features to existing products.
Roblox is a case in point. Canva, Picsart, Bing, Edge, Opera, MotionLeap, Shutterstock, TikTok, Wix, D-ID, Hour One, Cognigy, Humanfirst, NLX, Voiceflow, and many other products are implementing generative AI as a value-added feature. Generative AI is also quickly becoming a required feature in many product categories to maintain competitive parity.
Just as more existing product segments are seeing disruption from generative AI, so are industries. Game makers will be big beneficiaries of generative AI solutions for development and in-game features. Search, website development, design, digital people, conversational AI, software development, advertising, healthcare, biotech, media, and so many other industries are just starting to see the effects We are just getting started.
Great post! Game makers will be big beneficiaries of generative AI solutions for development and in-game features, but will it unseat or elevate small individual creators?