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Peter Molyneux thinks generative AI is the future of games, all but guaranteeing that it won't be
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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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A really good place would be background banter. Greatly reducing the amount of extra dialogues the devs will have to think of.
Sure, you'll have to make a TTS package for each voice, but at the same time, that can be licensed directly by the VA to the game studio, on a per-title basis and they too, can then get more $$$ for less work.
I'm pretty sure it'll be less money for less work, at least after the first few titles. Companies really don't like paying more than they have to.
One can dream.
True, but if the VA (or their agent) has any sense of business they'll be making more per hour
And probably royalties for using their "likeness." But longer-term, I'm guessing total revenue for VAs will drop, and there will probably be less variety.
They won't because of hallucinations. They could work in mature games though where its expected that whatever the AI says is not going to break your brain.
But yeah a kid walks up to toad in the next Mario game and toad tells Mario to go slap peaches ass, that game would get pulled really quick.
I just re-read my comment and realised I was not clear enough.
You bundle the text and the AI-TTS. Not the AI text generator.
So the content stays the same but you don't need a voice actor now?
The content is... AI assisted (maybe a better way to put it).
And yes, now you don't need to get the VA every time you add a line, as long as the License for the TTS data holds.
You still want to be having proper VAs for lead roles though. Or you might end up with empty feeling dialogues. Even though AI tends to put inflections and all, from what I have seen, it's not good enough to reproduce proper acting.
Of course that would mean that those who cannot do the higher quality acting ^[e.g. most Anime English dubs. I have seen a few exceptions, but they are few enough to call exceptions] will be stuck with only making the TTS files, instead of getting lead roles.
But that will mean that now, places where games could not afford to add voice, they now can. Specially useful for cases where someone is doing a one dev project.
Even better if there can be an open standard format for AI training compatible TTS data. That way, a VA can just pay a one time fee to a tech, to create that file, then own said file and licence it whichever way they like.
You know the way these programmers talk about AI, I think they just don't want to have to work with anyone else.
How is this not taking from voice actors and giving to yourself in that regard? The system you described would mean only the biggest names get paid, all so a developer can avoid learning social skills.
You are right. I don't want to have to socialise just to add a bit of voice to my game characters.
If I have to, I'd rather ship without voicing any of them.
I agree, but with AI instead of socializing.
Rather, it's more like, we as the user get a greater variety of background NPC banter, for the same game price.
Take X4 for instance. The only banter we get is different types of "hello".
Only in cases of quests, is there any dialogue variety. When there is any such banter out of quests, it's mostly incoherent (or was that another game, I need to check again).
It doesn't really make sense that 2 or more people meet in a docking area, say, "Hi", "Hello", "Good day to you" and then just keep on standing staring at each other's faces as if they were using some sort of telepathy, or just staring at each other without any conversation.
It would be fun to be able to have conversations that, while clear that they would not be able to yield any Quest, should still have variety enough to be fun when the player stops by, eavesdropping.
This sort of thing is there in a lot of games by high budget studios, while at the same time, the games have pretty large file sizes.
This way, we can reduce both production and distribution costs.
And the VAs, they don't need to do all the work of speaking each dialogue every time the story writers come up with new banter, but the studio will be getting their voice for those lines, essentially increasing the value of the licensed TTS package, meaning the VA gets more work done than the work they do and gets paid more (well, the last part depends more upon the market condition).
As a consumer I'd rather a real person voice acted it live or not at all. Thats petty to put your entertainment above someone's livelihood.
I don't really think of it that way.
Instead, more like:
Also, in the above condition, the VA only needs to make the TTS package once (then maybe a few upgrades if the standard gets updated) and gets to reuse it for multiple licenses.
Thats just extortion. You can argue you disagree but its just a difference of opinion. I also don't think that voice actors would agree with your license idea. I'm sure there would be a few exceptions though.
The ones who won't, are probably also those with good enough exp and able to get into "foreground" roles.
The ones who would, can now have a passive income.
I just wouldnt pitch this idea as a benefit for VAs is all. It won't be uses by VAs to benefit their profession, it will be used by non-VAs who want to cut costs. Thats not a worthwhile goal to me. We shouldnt be trying to make art more efficient, or remove the human element from it.
Both can be done.
Depends upon who takes it first.
If VAs don't make it efficient for themselves, their clients will make it so and the one who does it, gets to pocket the savings.
Depends who would pay more for the technology. Game developers or invidividual voice actors.
Maybe if they had a big enough union, they could swing it. Although at that point just get ai voices banned to protect your field.
Also, just an aside, I wouldnt pay extra for an AI version of an actor I liked. Thats still not them acting.
If course. It is about paying less after all.
The actor decided to get some passive income by licensing their TTS and someone used it as they wanted. That's all there is to it.
Apart from maybe, being able to get the AI to create different accented versions of a VA (which, said VA doesn't do otherwise), the AI voice will mostly be of a lower grade than a good VA. Which is what makes it unfit for foreground roles, which the user will be actively listening to.
You definitely don't want cutscenes to be filled with half-assed rubbish, which might be otherwise, fine for background chatter, where it is just filling the silence. And in cases where the background chatter is a part of the experience and the devs care about it, they will be getting active VAs like they currently do. There are more perfectionists in artistic fields than one would expect.
Well if their voice won't draw in buyers, than its a bad investment since you could just use some generic free version a bunch of non-voice actors were paid to make by the company they work for.
If money is to be made it won't be the VAs capturing it is all I'm saying. They might even have no room in the market at all.
I feel like being paid for it would kinda make them a VA, but sure.
And if the quality of AI voice were that bad, it would be worthless anyway and noone would create/use packages for it.
Okay my company tells me today I need to start recording my emails verbally. They own that and sell it to game companies.
Am I a voice actor?
= Were you "acting" ?
No its a side hustle for the company of sorts. What do you call that? A bi-product?
Oh come on, LLMs don't hallucinate 24/7. For that, you have to ask a chatbot to say something it wasn't properly trained for. But generating simple texts for background chatter? That's safe and easy. The real issue is the amount of resources required by modern LLMs. But technologies tend to become better with time.
I still really don't understand what amount of local resources it would require to run a trained LLM