Gamers are a fussy bunch. If you’ve ever encountered game critics and critiques, you’ll see a mix of puritans and archaeologists fussing over just about every game ever published.
These days, the critiques are savage. It sometimes looks like every pixel is under the microscope. Corporate games culture is routinely and often rightly reviled.
It’s sincerely loathed as a defiler of games as much for sloppy performance as for inexcusable no-saves on Steam and every other fiddly issue games have. Nobody’s too impressed with any of these things. MMOs are easy targets.
All people want to do is play games. They don’t need any added grief. This is a huge issue the sector simply refuses to acknowledge.
Meanwhile, the headlines about AI gaming range from purist “no AI” statements to scattered tales of development of AI games. As usual, the AI issue is seen as a threat, not as an asset. It’s anyone’s guess how realistic this is, but it has all the signs of “techno fear” from the old days of the internet and personal computing at its most basic levels. That was pretty useless, too, and also ignored the realities of the technologies.
The Sandbox Studio challenges the whole gaming sector
So, what about making your own games with AI? That’s the new option from The Sandbox Studio. It’s currently in embryonic form, and it’s for “solo developers” for distribution on multiple platforms including mobile and desktop.
According to Crypto Briefing.com, it’s “an AI-native game engine that lets creators go from a written description to a playable, live multiplayer game entirely in the browser. No downloads. No installs.”
This is all happening in Alpha mode. According to the company “over 400 studios and thousands of games have contributed.”If that means game developers are positive and are in on the ground floor it could be very good news for gaming as a whole. It’s not really a lot of information, but this could also be the bullet for gaming as we’ve known it.
The Sandbox Studio are definitely not being shy about promoting their idea. The Sandbox Studio X page is pretty clear, all promo and very upbeat. They fill in the gaps for would-be developers with a lot of basic information about how the idea will work.
They also mercifully spell out which Ais are involved, coding types, and give useful criteria for joining the Studio Sandbox Alpha and actively participating. The overall look is credible and very straightforward. They’re talking about “shipping in hours”, too. That’s a big departure from the gruesome bureaucracy of conventional game distribution.
Changing the gaming world with emerging tech
The all-important word here is the critical term “Sandbox”. Sandbox games are intended to maximise player freedom and is a very open-ended description of a gaming environment. It also just happens to be the basis of Open World games. The idea of a sandbox is to free up games from rigid format-based play.
This specific AI development scenario is also the first incarnation of something the gaming sector has been anticipating with both dread and genuine interest. AI is perfectly capable of delivering market standard games, and this is the first real test of that idea.
Let’s not sugarcoat any of this:
DIY sandbox games were the antithesis of conventional corporate gaming as it has been since the 1980s. They’ve worked so well that sandbox games are now the default for big online games and niche gaming. They start outside the sector box and have no need to play by sector rules.
Even the idea of an AI sandbox amplifies these characteristics enormously. It has to happen eventually, and it looks like it’s happening now, whether anyone likes it or not.
Unleashing millions of gamers on the gaming environment could be brilliant, chaotic, and incredibly confusing. Consumers may find themselves dealing with any range of issues with gameplay and paying for those issues. Developers with a good game idea could find these tsunami-like market issues an acquired taste as well.
The scope of creativity goes well beyond the usual “six thousand versions of Jewel and Warhammer” that we’ve seen monotonously before. Whole new genres of game could emerge. That alone is more dangerous to the complacent upper end of gaming than anything else.
Game graphics could upgrade from the current “sparkly nothings” to good quality interesting environments. That’s a huge challenge to bland gaming at a fundamental level.
Smarter AI is also inevitable. If you’ve ever played chess with Stockfish, you’ll now how advanced the new Ais can be. Gaming could evolve from the old brute force swarms to real tactical and strategic innovation with ease.
Undesirables are possible, too. What about malware built into games with hidden prompts, etc.? What about AI slop? These things are manageable at the coal face, but it’s hard to overlook the possibilities. On balance, it looks like The Sandbox Studio is set up to manage these at ground level.
Not stated in so many words, but it looks like distribution is directly managed by the platform. If so, that’s probably good for everyone, minimising “handling issues” for developers and gamers.
Nor are IP ownership values addressed, but that would probably be at contract level. This is a labyrinthine issue that needs to be spelled out. Who owns sprites? What about broad-brush ideas and innovations? The really good news for developers here is that this could shake out the IP cobwebs for gaming.
Pushing all the buttons
The Sandbox Studio couldn’t possibly have pushed more buttons in the entire gaming industry with this very good, practical, idea. They’re pitching to entire generations of dissatisfied developers who are more than tired of corporate intrusions. They’re selling to irritable gamers who want something more exciting than just more of the same.
They’re also undercutting a high-revenue hierarchy where it hurts. That’s going to be interesting. Big Corporate Gaming has an excellent chance of shooting itself in the foot here.
They could make heroes out of The Sandbox Studio overnight if they’re hyper-negative. The disgraceful state of “whatever garbage sells” gaming gets no sympathy from the market.
Too much resistance to the inevitable push of AI into gaming just won’t work. It can’t be stopped. AI is a major asset. It takes a lot of the drudgery and cost-inefficiencies out of making a game run properly. AI can be effortlessly used as an instant sandbox itself, by definition. You can try new modes, add things, and 4X the whole process of game design.
AI sandbox games will probably work and work well. The next generations of game designers will be working with a whole new palette.