Gamers look for many things in their games: good graphics, good storylines, easy navigation, accessibility—and most importantly, games in 2024 aspire to deliver this. Whether on console, PC, or mobile, developers are getting better at catering to every player, ensuring that gamers have a well-rounded experience and feel satisfied. One of the big things that gamers want developers haven’t achieved, however, is personalization.
Personalization in the iGaming Industry
Across the globe, gamers have been dreaming of a personalized gaming experience for decades – games that are less scripted and more driven by their own personal choices, playing style, and in-game behavior.
You may have noticed that personalization is already being trialed in the iGaming industry. To set their casinos apart in a crowded space, plenty of casinos are offering a no-wagering casino bonus and gaming recommendations that move beyond genericism and work to tailor the overall casino experience for the player.
Using personalization algorithms, predictive analytics, real-time feedback, and player segmentation, the casino experience is already becoming more individualized and unique depending on the type of player using the platform.
The Question of Offline Games
But while this is a form of personalization, it is still just a step in the right direction. True gaming personalization will cover all gaming formats, mobile, PC, and console combined, with games ranging from casino slots to AAA games offering a fully personal experience that caters to the individual player.
It would seem that the biggest hurdle is reserved for console and PC games – platforms that can be played offline and online. Online casinos are enhancing the individual experience largely through big data and analytics, something that cannot be replicated by companies offering a predominantly offline game – such as Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 or Santa Monica’s God of War. While these companies can use data to understand what players want, when the player is in-game, the journey from A to B, from beginning to end, will still play out traditionally.
AI NPCs Explained
This is perhaps why innovations like AI have been met with such interest from the gaming community. For years now, video games have been utilizing AI technology to generate intelligent, adaptive behaviors from NPCs – non-player characters – but with generative AI becoming the new big thing in the tech world, many are wondering whether generative AI-powered NPCs could be the next evolution of a truly personalized gaming experience.
Because while games might have the term ‘AI’ attached to them, most will agree that most NPCs are not that intelligent. In many cases, they lack realism and depth, with player interactions that are repetitive, formulaic, and ultimately forgettable. With generative AI, however, developers can create NPCs that lead to an ever-green experience for players – NPCs that can learn from the player, adapt and build relationships, and take them on a unique in-game journey.
The Potential for AI NPCs
Imagine you’re playing an RPG and have been given a side mission by an NPC. Ordinarily, this would be completely scripted. You would beat the side mission, return to the NPC, get scripted dialogue, and perhaps receive a reward. But what if your performance on that side mission directly informed the reaction of the NPC, leading to a completely unique interaction?
The NPC could exhibit a range of emotions, from happy to sad to angry, and give you newly generated dialogue that would differ to anyone else’s in-game experience. You might even get a unique mission generated entirely from the AI tech and informed by what you did in the original, scripted mission.
The Problem With AI
The possibilities are literally endless, and already, plenty of studios are trailing AI and machine learning tech to breathe new life into their output. But it’s fair to say that they’re not quite there yet. There are a few snags to be dealt with, of course. One of these snags is the highly publicized negative side of generative AI – the unreliability of performance, the chance of negative, out-of-control player interactions, and the fact that generative AI ultimately replaces human effort.
There are plenty of games out there that are universally explicitly loved because of their highly intricate, detailed storylines that have been human-crafted. If you replace this with generative AI, there is a chance that gamers will have to sacrifice quality in place of personalization.
Conclusion
But with anything as innovative as generative AI, there will always be roadblocks to the promised land. Hopefully, there will be a time when players can get a full, well-rounded, human-written story coupled with AI NPCs for personalization. We might have to wait a few more years yet, but with gaming industries making personalization more of a priority in recent years, a gaming landscape like this might come around sooner than you think.
