AI isn’t arriving in online gaming; it’s already there. Predictive game design, laser-focused personalization that’s almost scary, AI is starting to become hardwired into modern gaming.
It’s not just about fine-tuning the player experience or speeding up the development process; it goes far beyond these advancements. Here’s how AI is reshaping the overall gaming experience.
Enhanced Gameplay Through Intelligent NPCs
Intelligent NPCs, seem like a contradiction in terms, right? But with AI, non-player characters are breaking free from the traditional script, where you’d see predetermined patterns that would often become glaringly obvious. This takes you out of the experience, even if the world-building is great and the game immersive.
With AI, NPCs can adapt to player behavior in real-time, giving players dynamic interactions that are entirely unique. This is how it works:
Adaptive behaviour systems that learn from player actions, adjusting accordingly as the game develops. No longer the exact same response from individual to individual.
Contextual responses that are based on the player’s choices, crafting a choose-your-own-adventure-book type of narrative that is fully believable. Your game’s history, how you decide to proceed, it all affects what happens next.
Dynamic difficulty scaling allows NPCs to become more challenging as players improve (or the opposite, if you’re struggling!). It avoids that super annoying step of having to start all over again, and also creates a sense of a proper (but manageable) challenge at each step.
Personalized Gaming Experience
When you open up Netflix or Amazon Prime, almost every single recommended show or movie you’ll love. And TikTok and Instagram will keep you hooked for hours.
That’s all due to large amounts of data, and AI is changing the game even further, leading to unprecedented levels of personalization. Gaming platforms can now deliver fully unique experiences depending on individual preferences and even your playing style.
Gameplay patterns, preferred game mods, the average length of your session, and the types of missions you choose all inform an in-depth behavioral analysis platform that builds an incredibly accurate profile for each player.
This can, for example, be used for dynamic content recommendations, giving you new titles, levels, upgrades, or in-game challenges depending on how you play.
For companies, it’s a great way of delivering personalized promotional offers that are geared towards each individual player. The suggestions will be less annoying for consumers as they’re accurate, creating a win-win situation.
Robust Security and Anti-Fraud Measures
The gaming industry, like many others, faces constant threats from hackers, cheaters, and all sorts of fraudulent activities. This takes up a huge amount of resources, and even then, is not always effective.
Artificial intelligence changes the landscape by providing next-level defense mechanisms that are both adaptive and accurate. For example:
Real-time cheat detection can be achieved by analyzing a player’s movement, looking for unusual patterns or automated input sequences (which signal cheating in this case).
Identity verification systems help ensure players are who they say they are, preventing fraud on accounts. This is particularly useful in online casinos, where companies like SkyCity use sophisticated methods to prevent fraud.
Automated monitoring looks for all sorts of behavior, including in-game communications that may be toxic or even downright dangerous. Previous systems are/were good, but the accuracy is not always perfect.
Transaction security prevents financial data for users, and prevents any purchases that have not been authorized. If your card has been stolen and someone tries to use it, AI can stop it and alert the relevant bank.
These AI-powered security measures ensure that gaming is not only safe but seamless. The idea is that the player doesn’t even realize all of these processes are happening in the background.
Content Generation for Expansions
We all look forward to a new game, but if it’s good, there’s a problem: we finish it far too early. Sometimes in just one short weekend. With developers traditionally needing to create every expansion or even map manually, gamers often have to wait forever (sometimes literally!) for an update to appear.
With AI, companies can deliver updates faster than ever before. Think infinite world generation, with unique landscapes, environments, and characters. Or how about new storylines and quests, all done with artificial intelligence?
It not only helps once the game is released, but also during development. Companies can design with AI in mind, knowing that their creations can be expanded with ease once released to market and the general public. World-building will be far more creative, the possibilities truly endless, giving developers far more scope to let their imaginations run wild.
Final Level: What Comes Next?
AI has already changed how we play games; you may not even know how, but it’s happening right now. But in gaming terms, we’ve only just opened up the loading screen. There’s so much more to come.
