The patent called “STATE MANAGEMENT FOR VIDEO GAME HELP SESSIONS” describes multiple examples where a pop-up might ask a player to let a helper take over the gameplay for a while.
Imagine if a user were struggling to find a rare gem in an RPG; if allowed, the helper would take control from the player. They would proceed to chat and guide the user through the process of acquiring the gem.
My biggest fear with this is an arms race between puzzle developers and these solvers. I hope devs never design their games with the expectation that players will use AI
Why even bother living. Just get “AI” to live for you, and recycle your meaningless meat form.
You exist to be exploited for the benefit of the shareholders. This allows you to work so many more hours a day.
Prior art: I remember a long time ago seeing a video of a Barney (as in purple dinosaur) video game for little kids that would just start playing itself if you didn’t touch the controller for a while. It was a side scroller, probably NES/SNES/Genesis.
Eh… Folks used to pay people to level up their characters in WoW…
Wasn’t there a similar shit patent headline about sony doing that?
Oh yeah, there was, “ghost assistance”, aka “no need to look up on youtube”; something which I’m pretty sure exists as “previous art” in some game or another - https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sony-patents-ai-generated-ghost-support-system-to-assist-stuck-players
Also, bots that automate play have existed since the old MUD days, this patent must be like the many that are “something that already exists, but on a computer with AI”
I mean… Use the developers console or a cheat if you’re stuck with something and want to continue playing, or just quit the game. There’s no need for an AI to do this.
I do wish that more games still had cheats. It does feel a bit like a lot of newer games have foregone them entirely. You can’t type plane into GTA V, and have a plane materialise, like you could in Vice City, for example.
You’d need to mod it in.
Then they tell publishers and game developers that more players finish their games on Microsoft’s platform than any others!
This sounds like the ironically good version of the Nemesis System patent - no AI helpers in non-Microslop games for the next 20 years.
Tbh I wouldn’t mind this, I hate boss fights in games, I would definitely let the AI do those, and switch back to me for the stuff I enjoy :D
Edit: Though as another commenter said below, a skip button would achieve the same, no need for an LLM if that’s what they mean by “AI”.
I literally put down the entire Deus Ex series because of that teleporting bitch in Human Revolution. I want to know the story, god damn it!
First pay for the game, then pay for slop shit so you don’t have to play the game. Corporate big brain time at its best 😄
To be fair, the corpo slop games aren’t really worth playing, never mind paying for.
Edit: I didn’t read, I’m stupid, don’t be like me. It’s even worse than I imagined.
Not even. They’re going to sell you the idea that you’re a game dev, and sell you each piece and asset.
It’s the optimized AI version of “during a gold rush, is the people selling shovels and picks that get rich.”
“Finish” as in beat or best, not as in complete a development work to be shipped
