At the dawn of 2025, DeepSeek made waves in the AI sphere, sparking another transformative movement following ChatGPT, with subsequent models like Grok-3 and Claude 3.7 further elevating AI discourse.
Yet amidst this widespread enthusiasm, an intriguing phenomenon has emerged—while gaming, as a crystallization of human creativity and emotion, should naturally align with AI advancements, it has yet to produce a landmark application like "DeepSeek" that captures broad public imagination. Instead, generative AI applications in gaming have sparked debate among both industry professionals and players.
This gap between technological promise and practical reality highlights the complex challenges of deep AI-gaming integration, making "how AI can truly empower game development" a critical question for creators and audiences alike.
The State of Global AI-Gaming Integration
At the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025, AI dominated discussions, with industry leaders like Tencent, NetEase, Roblox, and DMM GAME presenting diverse approaches to "AI × Gaming."
According to the GDC 2025 State of the Industry report by DGC, 52% of developers work at companies utilizing generative AI tools, while 36% personally employ AI—up from 31% last year. The 2025 Unity Gaming Report further notes that 79% of developers hold positive views on AI's role in game development.
GDC 2025 State of the Industry
2025 Unity Gaming Report
Chinese companies are accelerating their AI investments:
- CMGE announced plans to deepen AI-gaming integration in its 2024 financial report, focusing on gameplay innovation.
- 37 Interactive Entertainment, a major player in user acquisition, invested in over five AI tech firms in 2024.
- Tencent restructured its AI division to prioritize rapid product innovation and advanced model R&D, increasing capital expenditures in AI.
Though no "breakout" AI-gaming product has yet emerged, the industry's exploration and adoption of AI have visibly accelerated, with tangible progress in both research and implementation worldwide.
Diverse Applications of AI in Gaming
Earlier this year, an AI-developed game ignited industry excitement. Independent developer "levelsio" created fly.pieter.com, a 3D multiplayer browser game coded entirely by AI Cursor and Grok 3. Despite its simplicity, the game generated nearly ¥300,000 through in-game ads, demonstrating AI's commercial viability in gaming.
Meanwhile, DMM GAME Translate unveiled an AI Agent-driven localization workflow at GDC, aiming to fully automate translations and replace traditional MT+PE (Machine Translation + Post-Editing) methods.
Their achievements include:
- Processing 1 million words/day
- Reducing costs to $0.03/word
- Translating 50 titles in 6 months
- Supporting 10+ language pairs (excluding Japanese)
- Enabling direct AI-translated releases for some clients
This efficient, low-cost approach exemplifies AI's transformative potential in gaming localization.
Chinese game developers are actively advancing AI integration, with multiple companies establishing dedicated AI labs/studios to refine practical implementations. Leading studios stand out by continuously innovating AI applications in gaming, delivering remarkable improvements to user experiences.
NetEase’s Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile introduced AI teammates with advanced NLP and reinforcement learning capabilities.
Tencent’s Honor of Kings deployed AI teammates that respond to voice/text commands in its "Commander" training mode.
The picture shows the feedback of the AI teammates to the instructions initiated by the player
Giant Network’s Werewolf Online integrated DeepSeek’s LLM for an innovative "Traitor Challenge" mode, pitting AI-driven players against humans.
While AI-driven opponents/teammates have become commonplace in games, recent innovations by developers have significantly advanced AI's role in enhancing player experiences.
Beyond NPCs, Friendship Times has implemented a self-developed model to enhance in-game level interactions. This technology adapts to players' operational habits, map designs, and win/loss patterns to assist progression and improve gameplay experience, currently deployed in their upcoming title Noisy Chef.
Other applications include:
- Tencent’s AI anti-cheat systems
- AI-optimized ad targeting for overseas titles like Tales of Immortal
- Tap4fun’s fully AI-generated idol simulator Top Girl
- miHoYo’s Whispers From The Star, featuring AI-driven character dialogues
From Efficiency to Transformation: AI’s Evolving Role
AI’s integration into gaming follows three progressive stages:
1. Production Optimization: Automating asset creation (art, audio, narrative), data analysis, and localization—yielding measurable cost savings (e.g., Friendship Times cut R&D expenses by ¥53.3M in 2024).
2. Experience Enhancement: Elevating gameplay through adaptive NPCs, dynamic narratives, and personalized difficulty—exemplified by Tencent/NetEase’s AI teammates.
3. Industry Transformation: Awaiting paradigm-shifting applications that redefine gaming’s core value chain.
Current industry practice demonstrates that AI applications in gaming remain primarily focused on production process automation, encompassing:Game asset generation (art, audio, narrative, etc.);Operational data analysis & automated testing;Intelligent localization.
The cost-efficiency benefits are substantial, as evidenced by Friendship Times' 53.3 million yuan reduction in R&D expenditures (2024 vs. 2023).
While most developers remain focused on production optimization, a select group of industry leaders has advanced to the experience-enhancement phase. Companies like Tencent and NetEase have deployed highly intelligent AI teammates that significantly improve in-match player interactions, directly elevating user experience and marking a critical transition from production assistance to gameplay enhancement. However, achieving true industry-wide transformation still awaits more groundbreaking applications of AI in gaming.
While AI was initially tasked with handling repetitive work, its current role is synergistic—augmenting human creativity rather than replacing it. Despite successes like fly.pieter.com, premium game development still demands substantial human input in today’s saturated, quality-driven market.
2025 Outlook: Three Key Trends
In the gaming industry, the application and evolution of AI can be broadly categorized into three progressive stages:
1. Content Production
- Generative AI dominates art, text, and VO production, offering unmatched efficiency and scalability (Top Girl’s U.S. success underscores its commercial promise).
- Challenge: Player skepticism persists in narrative/character-driven genres (e.g., anime, otome), requiring studios to balance automation with quality expectations.
2. Automation Tools
- AI-driven UA, behavioral analytics, and localization are reducing CAC and boosting ROI.
- Challenge: Over-reliance on algorithms risks creative homogenization—smaller studios must preserve uniqueness while leveraging AI.
3. Experience Innovation
- Dynamic storytelling, intelligent NPCs, and self-balancing gameplay are personalizing experiences.
- Challenge: Avoiding "AI for AI’s sake"—innovations must serve gameplay, not just showcase tech. Western AAA studios lead in experimentation, while Chinese firms prioritize commercialization.
Though AI-gaming integration remains in its exploratory phase, 2025 may mark a new beginning as technological advances and corporate investments converge.