AI and Web3 Technologies Are Driving the Next Wave of Innovation in Gaming
When advances in artificial intelligence started dominating tech headlines, it was only a matter of time before web3 use cases emerged. Fast-forward to today and AI is inarguably one of the hottest trends in blockchain, with the rise of autonomous agents giving rise to the DeFAI (or AiFi) trend and multiple AI-powered tools employed in the multi-billion-dollar web3 gaming sector.
In the case of the latter, AI is being used to deliver advances in various areas, from simplifying coding tasks and streamlining game development to enriching digital worlds and enhancing (re)playability. Although some have viewed AI with trepidation, recent developments suggest that rather than being competing forces, AI and web3 are complementary technologies, each enhancing the other’s capabilities while upholding the core tenets of decentralization and security.
We may just be on the cusp of a new dawn in digital entertainment.
AI’s Impact on Gaming So Far
Video games have a long and storied history dating back through four major eras: Arcade, Console, Online, and Web3. While web3 gaming has yet to truly penetrate mainstream consciousness, the innovations blockchain unlocks – player-owned assets, peer-to-peer trading, decentralized governance – are such that more and more gamers are likely to be converted over time.
Whether AI will constitute a fifth era remains to be seen. What’s less debatable is the effect the technology is already having, and not just in terms of blockchain-powered games. Electronics giant Sony has filed a patent for the development of an AI system that predicts what a player’s next move will be, enabling games to react faster to commands. Xbox, meanwhile, has its very own Gaming AI department with a team of researchers and engineers working around the clock on cutting-edge use cases, and Microsoft is exploring generative AI to enable greater prompt-based customization.
Unity, the world’s leading game development platform, unveiled its own duopoly of AI-powered tools in mid-2023, Unity Sentis and Unity Muse. While Muse interprets natural language commands to generate virtual environments, Sentis enables developers to implement sophisticated AI models for features like intelligent NPCs, reducing the need for manual scripting.
The release of Unity 6 further expanded these capabilities with an updated Sentis AI library, letting devs import, optimize, and run AI models directly in the Unity runtime environment. Designed to work seamlessly within the wider Unity ecosystem to streamline building, Muse and Sentis could be a sign of things to come in game development.
Web2 gaming giants are naturally keen to leverage AI to expedite development and deliver richer playing experiences. In web3, the aims are similar yet there is also a focus on integrating LLMs and other tools alongside elements like smart contracts, NFTs, and DAOs to create a more player-centric, immersive, and engaging environment.
AI-Powered Alien Worlds: A Web3 Case Study
While a great many web3 projects use AI in one way or another, Alien Worlds is a prime example of how the tech can enhance this particular form of gaming without compromising on decentralization.
The world’s most-played on-chain game, Alien Worlds has integrated AI across multiple facets of its ecosystem, most notably with last year’s release of Lynx, a Discord-based Large Language Model. (Unlike traditional LLMs, Lynx is specifically trained on Alien Worlds’ lore, earning it the designation of a Large Lore Model.) Created to be a player’s constant companion, Lynx can answer esoteric questions relating to the game’s sci-fi universe and also help draft creative content, empowering players to contribute to and expand the metaverse’s mythology.
Alien Worlds’ use of AI extends beyond narrative development, though. In its core mining game, where players compete to procure Trilium tokens using a ‘rig’ of NFT tools, AI systems work behind the scenes to parse player data and combat the use of bots, preserving the integrity of the game’s blockchain-based economy. AI-powered tools like Midjourney were also used to generate digital art for characters, vehicles, and landscapes featured in the project’s official Tokenized Lore book.
Perhaps most notably of all, Alien Worlds’ Planetary Syndicates – the game’s decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) – have wholeheartedly embraced AI tools in their daily operations, whether for analyzing governance proposals, allocating resources, or driving community engagement. Rather than making decentralized governance structures redundant, AI appears to enhance them.
Beyond Alien Worlds, conversations about advances in agentic gaming are starting to be had in web3’s corridors of power. The concept of agentic gaming involves the use of autonomous entities within gaming environments, with Agent vs. Agent (AvA) and Player vs. Agent (PvA) modes joining existing PvP and PvE interactions.
Given the ability of agents to control crypto wallets, it’s also easy to imagine them being used to trade items peer-to-peer on players’ behalf; identifying and profitably offloading underutilized in-game assets, for example.
The Future of Gaming
With greater synthesis of AI and web3 technologies, the hope is that a Cambrian explosion of innovation is upon us, with benefits flowing in the direction of both developers and players.
AI’s ability to generate content, enable new gameplay mechanics, autonomously manage digital wallets, and enhance personalization complements blockchain’s inherent strengths as far as asset ownership, security, transparency, and decentralization are concerned.
Together, these next-gen technologies are deepening player engagement by creating highly responsive and dynamic AI-driven games, without jeopardizing the principles that make blockchain gaming so attractive in the first place.
