Ahead of the full report’s release in December, Japan’s Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association (CESA) released a preliminary summary of its recent key findings on the state of game development earlier this month. It includes a particularly notable figure suggesting that 85.8 percent of Japanese game developers actively use generative AI in their work. These figures come from a survey of game developers conducted at the Japanese game developers conference CEDEC and represent a significant increase over the findings of last year’s report, which stated that only 51 percent of developers were using this technology. This use covers both the generation of assets and the use of tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot and others for more generic administrative work. (Japanese studios’ use of AI to generate assets has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks following a presentation by Dark Cloud developer Level-5 and Professor Layton, which fans suspected was riddled with AI-generated images.) Of those who use the tools, 63 percent report using the technology daily, while 22.8 percent use it only occasionally. Another 8.6 percent said their companies have introduced guidelines on the use of technology. A total of 1,349 developers responded to the study. According to the survey, the majority of them claimed to have seen some benefit from using the technology. Many noted that it reduced production time and costs: 837 said it expanded creativity and 738 said it reduced technical barriers. However, only 147 stated that the technology actually benefited the end-user experience. There are some caveats to keep in mind with this survey. It is made up of individual developers, which means it can have numerous developers from the same company with identical policies and does not take into account a breakdown of overall AI usage by company. In CESA’s own survey of its member companies, 74 percent reported having policies on the use of generative AI. There was a more or less even split between companies that were not using generative AI (27 of those surveyed) and those that were using it in some form (26). Only 12 companies used it for visual assets, and even fewer used it for things like story, localization, quality control, or programming. The use of generative AI in the Japanese gaming industry is certainly increasing, but most notable are the ways in which companies are establishing firm policies governing how it can be used and implemented. Many of these policies have emerged in response to mixed feedback from players and concerns shared online. Although support for these technologies is strongest in East Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, the global reaction, as seen with games like Crazy Taxi: World Tour, suggests that gaming companies will have to be more thoughtful about implementing AI than companies in other industries that are racing to leverage it to increase productivity and reduce workforces.
