EA claims its developers are ‘hungry’ to use AI; understand

The use of AI in game development, as well as voice acting, has been a hotly debated topic on social media. Even with the controversies, the CEO and president of Electronic Arts, Andrew Wilson, states that its developers have “a real hunger” to use generative AI to speed up the production of the company’s games.

The matter came up in a question and answer session during a fiscal meeting last Tuesday night (7), where Wilson was asked about how EA plans to use the resource in the coming years.

The executive responded that the company is already using AI in some aspects and mentions the franchise EA Sports FC for example. He states that the feature allows developers to make football stadiums much more vivid, in addition to the possibility of adding a greater variety of animations to athletes.

According to EA, the use of AI in EA Sports FC 24 has helped a lot with player animations.Font: EA

Wilson also compared animations and execution cycles in the software development process. FIFA 23 e EA Sports FC 24. He states that the technology “increased the individuality and uniqueness of each player” in the new game in the franchise, consequently providing “more immersion and a more immersive and faithful experience to those who watch [jogo] on television on Sunday afternoons”.

Could generative AI be the future for EA?

The executive continued his speech, then suggesting that more than half of EA’s development processes could be improved by generative AI in the future. Apparently, the plan is to transform the production line over the next five years.

“We have performed analysis on all of our development processes and at this time, based on our initial assessment, we believe that more than 50% of our development processes will be positively impacted by advances in generative AI,” said Wilson.

“And I would tell you that there is a real desire among our developers to get to that as quickly as possible because, again, the Holy Grail for us is to build bigger, more innovative, more creative, more fun games, faster, so that we can entertain more people around the world on a global basis and at a faster pace”, concluded the executive.

Well, considering that there are some people who fervently defend the extinction of generative AI under any circumstances, EA could potentially be the target of harsh criticism on social media if it goes this route.

There’s a huge team working on the new Battlefield

At the conference, Wilson also confirmed that EA has more people working on the new Battlefield than at any other time in the franchise’s history.

“This is the biggest team in Battlefield in the history of the franchise”, says the executive. “A few weeks ago, I was visiting the teams and I couldn’t be more excited about what they showed and what we were able to play.”

New Battlefield has the largest development team in the franchise’s history, according to EA’s CEO.Font: EA

There is some speculation suggesting that the next game in the series Battlefield will be revealed sometime in 2024 — potentially during the traditional June announcement window. It’s also worth remembering that EA recently confirmed that season 7 of Battlefield 2042 it would be the last of the game.

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