Activision Blizzard has not had the best week, with the announcement of scrapping the promised PvE mode in Overwatch hitting fans hard. Now an internal email has leaked in which higher ups announce their plans for AI image generators.
Blizzard recently revealed to its employees that they're working on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool which will be able to generate concept art for their games. This comes just after the announcement of a dead PvE mode in Overwatch 2 as well.
According to an email obtained by The New York Times, it is revealed that Blizzard has been working on an AI generator tool and that they will show it off to their employees this year and utilize it for their games.
Blizzard To Introduce AI Art
Artificial Intelligence in gaming is nothing new. Ubisoft has their own AI tool to generate basic dialogue to help writers create more diverse background conversation for non player characters (NPC's). Now, Blizzard has also created their own AI tool, Blizzard Diffusion.
- Check out Diablo: Book of Lorath for some cool character designs and ideas not made by machines.
In the email to Blizzard employees, Blizzards chief design officer, Allen Adham, wrote, "prepare to be amazed [...] We are on the brink of a major evolution in how we build and manage our games."
According to The New York Times report, this isn't the only AI tool Blizzard has tested to improve art and make the workflow for artists easier. One of the AI tools that had been tested was meant to help create environmental textures, like stone and brick, but it ended up not looking good, so Blizzard scrapped it.
Adding in these types of AI tools are meant to help the artists and workers, but sometimes it also feels like companies just incorporate them to impress their shareholders, as stated by former Blizzard employee, Valentine Powell.
- Overwatch PvE might be dead, but the art sure isn't! Check out The Art of Overwatch for some cool painting ideas!
Leadership’s focus on A.I. doesn’t feel like it is solving a problem that individual contributors care about [...] It feels like ignoring their problems and focusing on hype words that they think will sound impressive to shareholders.
Well, it seems that Blizzard Diffusion has been pretty successful, if Blizzard are letting everyone in the company know about it. In the current state of the business, it's impossible to ignore AI as a helpful tool, it's just important to keep the human touch when making games.