Brendan Greene, creator PUBGbetter known as PlayerUnknown, said he was “heartened” to see people rallying against the use of generative artificial intelligence in game creation.
His comments came in response to questions about whether his studio PlayerUnknown Productions uses generative artificial intelligence to create the world-building technology it is currently working on. he hopes to one day create Earth-sized planets on which millions of people can play..
“We don't use LLM [large language models] so I'm not too worried [about backlash]”Green told me. “LLMS have their uses, but there were chatbots in the 60s and 70s that achieved many similar goals. So I'm not too worried. The systems we build should allow artists to create worlds the way they want. It's like an orchestra: we can either be violinists or conductors, where you know what everyone does and you just have a few levers you can push and it creates worlds pretty quickly.
“I was very happy to see the community rise up against artificial intelligence,” he added. “It's nice to see gamers saying, 'No, unless it's made by artists, I don't want to see it.' So it was really nice to see that. So I'm not too worried because I think we're using it correctly. I think we're using it to create worlds faster rather than take work away from artists.”
“It's nice to see gamers saying, 'No, unless it's made by artists, I don't want to see it.'
Greene's remarks take on added poignancy given his studio's ties to Krafton, a South Korean company that controversially announced a company-wide “AI First” requirement and entered into a period of voluntary layoffs recently anyone who didn't want to be a part of it could get out. PlayerUnknown Productions began life as Krafton's “special projects” team, which Green created after leaving PUBG in 2019.
“What we did in the special projects was the first part of what we're doing now in this three-game plan,” he explained to me. “So that was the start of PlayerUnknown Productions and then a few years later I asked to go out on my own and they supported me and we created PlayerUnknown Productions.”
The key message here is “they supported me,” because Crafton remains an investor in PlayerUnknown Productions today. And why would Krafton invest in a studio and technology if it doesn't align with its future goals?
“As a completely independent studio, our overall goals at PlayerUnknown Productions are not affected by Crafton's chosen strategy,” Greene told me in a follow-up email after our call. “While Krafton remains a minority shareholder in our studio, as of 2021 their internal operations are separate from ours.
“Project Artemis and our three-game plan are being developed independently by us, and we have been working on our plans for some time.
“While we conduct technology research in areas such as machine learning to give our artists the tools to create worlds on a larger scale using local GPU computing, our focus is on using technology to solve problems of scale so players can enjoy bigger and new worlds.”
“Our overall goals at PlayerUnknown Productions are not affected by Crafton's chosen strategy.”
The three-game plan he mentioned is already underway. Game one Prologue: Go Wayback! will be released in Early Access on November 20th.. It's a survival and navigation game where you have to survive the elements and find your way through a forested wilderness without starving, freezing, or otherwise dying. But this is actually a demonstration of world generation at the terrain level. In about a minute, the game creates a unique and detailed world for you to play in, and does so every time you play.
The second game, which is being developed by PlayerUnknown Productions, will be a multiplayer shooter. it will be an exciting return to the genre that Green has had tremendous success with with PUBG. The next game, the third, will introduce even more layers and tools to the underlying technology to take it to the point where other people can use it. The idea is to release it for free as open source technology.
