Game developer Square Enix’s—creator of the Final Fantasy series—President Takashi Kiryu, opened 2024 with a New Year’s letter that reflected on the company’s past and hinted at the company’s future, especially when it comes to integrating artificial intelligence into game development.
“I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape what we create but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming,” said Kiryu.
“We intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions. In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities,” he added.
In his forward-looking letter, President Kiryu alludes to the transformative potential that AI can have on game development. AI could drastically reduce the time it takes for games to reach the market—a game-changer in an industry where development cycles can be notoriously long and costly—and faster production suggests reduced costs. These innovations level the playing field when it comes to game development, empowering smaller studios to operate on a similar innovation and production timeline as industry giants like Square Enix (NASDAQ: SQNXF).
From buzzwords to business
“In terms of new business domains, we previously identified three focus investment fields, namely blockchain entertainment/Web 3.0, AI, and the cloud. Last year we redefined our overarching mission and goals for these three fields. We are currently working to modify our organizational structure and optimize our resource allocations to support these efforts,” said Kiryu.
While the president’s letter outlines Square Enix’s interest in leveraging AI, it doesn’t go into detail regarding how the company intends to harness this technology. Kiryu does hint at the potential of AI to revolutionize content creation, software development, and marketing to consumers, and the letter does not provide any concrete strategies or applications that we can expect from the developer.
This style or rather pattern in communication from large companies aligns with a broader trend that we saw toward the end of 2023. Because AI has significantly increased in popularity over the last year, many executives acknowledged AI in their year-end letters. However, companies and executives are going to need to do more than play buzzword bingo. They must go beyond merely talking about the latest technology trends in the same sentence as their companies. Companies are going to need to actually implement and take advantage of these transformative technologies. Otherwise, their press will fizzle out, and they will lose credibility—similar to when blockchain technologies and digital assets began gaining traction, and some corporations took advantage of this buzzword only to under-deliver and then later face the legal consequences of their actions.
Expect more AI announcements
Nearly every industry stands to benefit from automation and the advanced pattern recognition and analysis provided by AI, especially in handling large datasets for more sophisticated marketing and operational strategies, as mentioned by President Kiryu. When it comes to the game development industry in particular, I would expect other players in the industry to openly embrace AI as Square Enix has just done in its letter because a message like that prompts competitors and peers alike to announce or accelerate their own AI strategies to show the world that they are staying competitive.
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