gamescom 2026

Transcript

00:00:00Hi, today our episode is about games, and we're doing it from gamescom, the biggest games fair in the world.

00:00:09And Mark and I are going to tell you a bit about what that means for the games industry, how they develop games, what AI is changing

00:00:17and also what it means for us as players when studios start developing with AI and when we maybe run into AI in games.

00:00:24And on top of that you'll find out why I was also very disappointed on the first day of gamescom.

00:00:29was very disappointed. Stay tuned!

00:00:59to take along. A warm welcome to Think Different. Think AI. We promised you.

00:01:12Jens and I spared no cost and no effort to visit an event

00:01:19that calls itself the biggest gaming fair in Europe. It's really funny,

00:01:27because when I drove here with my son, I had just read one of those

00:01:33news ticker items, along the lines of, gamescom is coming, it's making the month

00:01:37a huge success, everything will be super and everything will be really great, and that's why

00:01:41next year we'll be there the whole week. Well, not us in person, I don't know if we'll

00:01:46be there a whole week, or whether we'll even visit for one day next year, but gamescom will

00:01:49somehow be running for a whole week next year, but before we

00:01:55talk about next year maybe. Jens, nice to see you, it's actually quite rare

00:02:02that we meet, let's say, live and in color, otherwise we're always just on these

00:02:06monitors in Riverside. Jens, how do you like gamescom? Well, first of all, hello

00:02:13from my side too, as always I have to explain briefly, I've been going to gamescom for years,

00:02:21ever since gamescom stopped being in Leipzig, and we've always gone.

00:02:28Spent a lot of time here.

00:02:30Also with my son back in the day, of course.

00:02:34And then we went here.

00:02:36Took in all sorts of things, looked at indie games.

00:02:39Queued up at the big ones, at the big games.

00:02:42Sometimes got annoyed that I couldn't get a ticket anymore.

00:02:45Then went anyway in the evening instead.

00:02:48One of those afternoon slots, you can still queue then, it's also a bit emptier.

00:02:51That became a kind of pattern over the years, then I'd also been around a few rounds.

00:02:56Witnessed the change from a gaming fair to also a kind of influencer fair.

00:03:02Yeah, I can still remember the fair back then, right?

00:03:04I can remember the very first time, yeah, when somehow a horde of teenagers kept running past me and I thought, what's going on here?

00:03:13But it was just some influencer, YouTuber, Let's Player who was somewhere around, and that's how this fair has developed a bit, but I have to say, when you walk through the aisles here, it's still impressive what kind of booths there are, how big they are, just interesting from a booth construction point of view.

00:03:34So if you want to see awesome trade fair booths, you have to come to gamescom.

00:03:38And it's just crazy how many people are there.

00:03:41The noise level is insane.

00:03:43But I like it every time, diving into gamescom at least one day a year and being there.

00:03:50It's a cool event, it's an awesome spirit.

00:03:53I like talking to the developers in the indie corner, talking a bit with them about the UX of the games.

00:03:58I like trying out new games.

00:04:00Sometimes it's enough for me to just drift around a bit,

00:04:04watching the people who are there, the crazy ones like cosplayers, the others walking around

00:04:09who dressed up for the games.

00:04:11It's just an awesome scene, where I've been since,

00:04:15since I was 5 or 6 at home, that's a few years ago now,

00:04:18I'm a gamer at heart and accordingly always happy to be at gamescom.

00:04:24It's fun.

00:04:26Well, I have to admit, I haven't been part of it for quite that long.

00:04:30At some point I said to my son, okay, come on, how about we go together,

00:04:35I mean you with me or me with you or whatever, yeah, how about we visit gamescom.

00:04:39And the first time we were there, the very first time, we had trade visitor access.

00:04:45And trade visitor, so that was access for people who want to visit the thing as a trade visitor.

00:04:52And it was really funny, because it was so nice and empty.

00:04:56And you look at each other and think, where's this crowd everyone's talking about?

00:05:01And there were no age wristbands either.

00:05:04Now you have to know, my son wasn't 18 back then, he still isn't 18 now,

00:05:09we're not going to discuss what color he was walking around with.

00:05:12But we pretty much just went through.

00:05:14He could do everything, from whatever to who knows what.

00:05:17One day later, normal visit, we walk in just as cheerfully as the day before.

00:05:23It was a bit fuller.

00:05:25And three times someone asked, how old are you?

00:05:29My son, I know, right?

00:05:31Three years ago, so he says 13, 14, yeah, something like that.

00:05:34Yeah, you need a wristband and you're not allowed to play this.

00:05:37But the day before he was in there, you know?

00:05:40That was kind of our first gamescom experience, along the lines of,

00:05:43oh look, there are days like this and days like that.

00:05:46In case that was a mistake on the first day,

00:05:48then I didn't mention it,

00:05:50then it never happened.

00:05:52But that was one insight, for example, and there we also had the thing that suddenly a crowd of people forms a cluster and whoa.

00:06:00And you think, what's going on?

00:06:02There must have been someone, influencer-wise, walking through the aisles.

00:06:07Before we talk about AI, there was something here that really frustrated me today throughout the day.

00:06:15I'd like to mention that later, but before I say something bad, you absolutely have to say something good.

00:06:19thought it was cool. Today, so what did I think was cool? I was also a bit, well, you always have

00:06:28to say, gamescom is more than just gamescom, I mean gamescom in Cologne

00:06:33also has the Ringfest out there, where there are even free concerts,

00:06:38where they close the streets on the Ring in Cologne and there's a huge party

00:06:42with cool bands playing. So it's a real festival around

00:06:46the topic, this addictive gaming culture, which of course also brings other cultures along.

00:06:51Then there's also the gamescom congress and gamescom dev, which takes place Monday,

00:06:58Tuesday. That's the developer conference of gamescom, and then the big gamescom,

00:07:02which is the biggest games fair in the world, with all the 1,700 exhibitors who are there,

00:07:07I heard the figure that over 70 percent of exhibitors are from other countries.

00:07:16So it's not just German makers there, it's super international.

00:07:19I find that alone impressive, seeing that again and again.

00:07:23This culture that connects the world, that's what I enjoy.

00:07:26And I myself actually had a guided tour this time, which gamescom had arranged,

00:07:30and could take a bit of a look behind the scenes into the business areas.

00:07:34listened to two or three talks about how brands can also become successful in the gaming scene

00:07:43with different approaches. I found that really exciting, looking at the business side more closely this time

00:07:47and not just being there as a gamer. Still, I simply enjoyed it again,

00:07:52walking across the fair. I always have to say, it's this culture

00:07:59that I enjoy. Seeing people's joy, and sometimes I don't stop

00:08:05when I walk past certain spots, because I don't do that, when people

00:08:08queue somewhere there for six hours to play a game, I still find that kind of crazy,

00:08:12because the game is then out as a demo two days later and you can download it,

00:08:16but be that as it may, to each their own. This time I found, to get back to your question,

00:08:26Actually, I just can't remember the name, in the indie hall I looked at a game that I found most, I find the indie hall the same as always.

00:08:33The indie hall is my place to be, because you've got loads of good games you can have a proper look at, where there aren't endlessly long queues, where you can talk directly to the developers.

00:08:45The question, if it may come up over the next five years too, honestly, I find that better and better.

00:08:51which can also become faster, sorry.

00:08:53So in the indie hall I actually had an AI topic, but before I get to that, I

00:08:58just wanted to say, since I introduced it earlier, what did you particularly like, because

00:09:02something particularly annoyed me.

00:09:03You know, you come to this fair today, right?

00:09:07The fair opens at 10 o'clock for ordinary mortals, you go in, it's a

00:09:13bit crowded, but whatever, then you go over to the Xbox booth and

00:09:20I mean, I thought the games were really cool, right?

00:09:23I mean, I'm an old Halo fan, because I bought the first Xbox back then

00:09:28when the first Halo game came out, and there's Call of Duty and whatever the whole

00:09:34thing was called that they showed, and then the Xbox booth came up with something nice,

00:09:39along the lines of, we've got this green button event, and

00:09:43you fill up a kind of collector card by playing games, and for every

00:09:48game you played you get a QR code, and when you scan it you basically get points and can collect points in four different rows.

00:09:57A4 points, which means you can fill up different rows by playing games, and when you've filled a row, you can press the green button for each row to win something.

00:10:09There are steering wheels and consoles, lanyards and loads of other stuff.

00:10:14And they had mixed that up a bit, yeah.

00:10:16That was really great, because I had taken a bit of a look at it

00:10:20when we got to the booth.

00:10:22There were some who somehow already had one or two rows

00:10:27full of those points and then somehow grabbed a steering wheel

00:10:30and a controller and a pin and who knows what.

00:10:33And then we said to each other, come on, let's do that too.

00:10:36And it's quite nice too, you get to play a few things, and then we

00:10:39played everything from Call of Duty to Halo to Fable to Flight Simulator and all that stuff,

00:10:48and then my son also raced across the booths to get the

00:10:53sponsor codes, which were yet another row with, like, gaming brands

00:11:00basically.

00:11:01Honestly, I asked the AI whether it couldn't somehow compute the QR codes.

00:11:07It said no, that's not possible at all, because there are too many unknowns.

00:11:11I do know how the thing is structured, I'm not even sure whether I could do it

00:11:16by now, but that's another topic.

00:11:17Well, we didn't have quite all the things full, we were proud as punch, because we had

00:11:22them all full.

00:11:23We got to press this green button four times, you could already guess it, then

00:11:27it was a no.

00:11:28So go and stand in the queue, because there's a queue here too, and this queue then greeted us for another two hours earlier.

00:11:35So after all the playing we stood in there for another two hours.

00:11:38Full of anticipation, after all they have four chances.

00:11:41And then you get there and they basically explain to you, no, since the queue is so long now,

00:11:46if you want to do it again, you have to queue up again every time.

00:11:50You're only allowed in once.

00:11:52And oh, by the way, I've also got tickets here for the next few days.

00:11:57Tomorrow it's invalid.

00:11:59Hm, okay, I see.

00:12:01A moment ago you were still letting people through.

00:12:04I totally understand that people standing in the queue,

00:12:07that everyone has a right, please don't get me wrong.

00:12:09But I think if you get into games like that,

00:12:12then you should also expect that it'll be a success.

00:12:14I mean, this isn't the very first time in its life that Xbox is

00:12:17at gamescom and is surprisingly packed.

00:12:19And it's one and a half.

00:12:21I don't even want to know what it looks like on Saturday.

00:12:24I walked past once and just took a quick look, because I have this nice 25th anniversary edition of the Xbox there, in the transparent green, I had taken a look at that.

00:12:38I also wanted to preorder the keyboard there.

00:12:41But again it only worked if you're American, of course you can only call in America to preorder the keyboard.

00:12:49But I do think it's kind of nice.

00:12:51But that's another topic, but I had also seen there, there were people right in this prize draw queue

00:12:56and they pressed the button and one of them won one of those big, what's it called, steering wheel with pedals.

00:13:02That's obviously for racing games.

00:13:04And that was a really big box, and I thought, wow, it's only Thursday,

00:13:09they must have quite a big stockroom with them for all the prizes if they keep handing out stuff like that.

00:13:15But apparently there were also smaller prizes to win, which...

00:13:21I wanted a lanyard with the thing my son has, the buttons.

00:13:25That's what I was getting at. I can see it here again.

00:13:27Put on a controller.

00:13:29Again, all fair.

00:13:31Yeah, all good.

00:13:32To look at a lot and so on.

00:13:34I just found this, we change the rules of the game in the middle of the game, basically.

00:13:40I found that kind of a bit, well...

00:13:43And you have to understand, Mark is still proudly holding up the lanyard in front of me now.

00:13:47Yeah, they even speak.

00:13:50But there's nothing attached.

00:13:51I mean, there's nothing attached.

00:13:54But fine, okay, maybe back now,

00:13:57since we've now spent the first 30 minutes talking about gamescom and so on.

00:14:01Ten more times.

00:14:03We can't really do that much of all the current stuff yet,

00:14:08because as far as I've picked up now,

00:14:10picked up, the GTA 6 trailer comes out on Netflix tomorrow. I'm really

00:14:16curious about that too, yeah, even if there's one leaker or another who has somehow already

00:14:19published full videos, but let's leave that aside, what was mentioned about the indie hall.

00:14:25And I want to use that as a transition to our actual topic, namely,

00:14:28and it won't surprise you, yeah, we're not called Game Different, we're called

00:14:34Think Different. Think AI, and so we want to think about what AI actually has to do with the

00:14:40games scene. I didn't have that many chances to talk to real people.

00:14:49I had two opportunities. One was, I could listen in on an interview.

00:14:54I found that online later. Which made me think, okay, how convenient.

00:15:00When it's like that again, when you can't get mics in position in time in a situation like that.

00:15:04And the second was, I was in the said indie hall, not because the indie hall attracts me so much,

00:15:10but because we were just passing through, basically.

00:15:14And there I took the chance at a game and brought up the topic.

00:15:19What's the deal here with AI in software development?

00:15:21And a look of horror, of sheer dread, came flying back at me,

00:15:27because at exactly that moment, putting my foot in it big time, I had found probably the only game in the indie hall

00:15:33that advertised using basically hand-painted graphics.

00:15:39Okay, okay, okay.

00:15:40Like Riko says, yeah, what do you actually think of AI development.

00:15:44That's roughly like, what do I know, asking a vegetarian what they think of

00:15:48the burger restaurant.

00:15:49Yeah, but that was still AI development.

00:15:51I mean, as I said, I think that's a good stepping stone, because

00:15:56Yes, of course, in my opinion, a person who can put a lot, a lot of time into such a painted

00:16:03subject is certainly allowed to have a somewhat worse opinion of cheap

00:16:11AI slop, which by now, honestly, you have to say, also on Steam,

00:16:16Steam, the big gaming platform where you can basically buy games, buy them online

00:16:21and then play them on your computer, there's a lot of it now.

00:16:25A lot, a lot of AI slop is being produced right now and is cheap on the market.

00:16:30And of course I can understand them a bit, you know, when a lot of work goes into it

00:16:34and then in this shouting of cheap software solutions that are very, very similar,

00:16:43you have to make yourself heard with your handcrafted game, that's not easy.

00:16:49I mean, when a load of AI junk comes out, I'm not talking about you, what the crap is.

00:16:54so that a load of AI junk is separating, of course it also gets difficult for the small ones

00:16:56somehow in this cacophony of cheap copies. That's how I can describe it

00:17:03for now, and we'll get to other topics in a moment where AI actually is

00:17:07very, very helpful for developers as well as for players, in my opinion. Still,

00:17:13for small developers in particular that's probably not so clear-cut. If we build on that,

00:17:17I think on the other hand it's also really good if you're a developer and

00:17:20have good ideas and can put them into practice with it, because you couldn't have done that

00:17:23earlier, but I can understand him a bit, yeah, or not just a bit,

00:17:28quite a lot, but of a somewhat different opinion than the two of us maybe.

00:17:31I think that can, well, that's easy to misunderstand, I'm

00:17:37warning you in advance, so nobody later says, listen, listen, they're claiming

00:17:41it's like this and who knows what, these are, let's say, our personal

00:17:45impressions that we're reporting here. One interview I was able to follow on the sidelines, so to speak, was the interview with

00:17:54Felix Falk, managing director of game e.V., who, asked something like, what role does AI play and so on, said something

00:18:02to the effect that AI actually isn't anything new. Okay, fine, that's good to start with, yeah, it's not like

00:18:11everything here is uncharted territory and so on, but then I found this sentence funny. Game development has been using it for

00:18:17years, decades, and I briefly asked myself, okay, are we talking about the same AI. I mean, are we talking

00:18:22about the same tooling that helps you with coding in software development, or are we

00:18:27talking about being able to, I don't know, optimize images? What are we talking about? When someone

00:18:33says, we've been using it for more than a decade, well, in my world, maybe I

00:18:37miscalculated again, like the other day with bits and bytes, where I somehow kept

00:18:42getting it wrong or argued with my kids' teachers about how many kilobytes

00:18:47make a megabyte and so on. We once had an episode about the discussion between 1000 and 1024

00:18:53on that, as I mentioned. What do they mean? By a decade I mean ten years

00:18:58and by several I understand more than ten years. I don't really know what things were like

00:19:06more than 10 years ago when it comes to AI. Yes, let me bring up another example

00:19:16as well, that actually, I don't know exactly which game it was,

00:19:24but there was also a game, they said again now at gamescom,

00:19:28that they actually used AI in the concept phase, but have now

00:19:36backed away from it, because there are very, very many negative reviews about it.

00:19:41So the gaming scene itself is also very divided on this topic and reacts

00:19:48very harshly at the moment with their wallets, slash also by speaking up in the reviews.

00:19:53So there are games that are currently getting an extreme number of bad reviews when the developers

00:20:00are open about using AI.

00:20:03Okay.

00:20:04There is also such a, yes, I think there is no homogeneous opinion on the topic at the moment

00:20:11in there.

00:20:12And at the moment the gaming scene, well, I think it isn't uniform, I have

00:20:17a very heterogeneous view there, who then say, some don't think it's

00:20:23good and I'm just reading through a few videos again on Steam, there is actually

00:20:29here, I can read one out, it then simply ends, storyline was a bit confusing,

00:20:35hard to read, agree, and at the end he says not a fan of games that use AI.

00:20:40Yes, that is basically still one of those topics, that there, I think it also has something

00:20:47to do with a lack of understanding, I like, we already talked about this a little bit

00:20:50before we started the show. Where today isn't there AI in it,

00:20:56actually, anymore. In many things, whether you're the online shopper and use some

00:21:00things there, there are algorithms in it too that improve things. Every one of every influencer

00:21:06who does subtitles, uses in their videos on YouTube to get more reach

00:21:12or anything else. Everything there is done with AI.

00:21:16small studios, I mean just them, what potential they have, where they

00:21:20might lack money or access to talent, where you could possibly also

00:21:24help yourself with it. I just ask myself about the whole thing, when you

00:21:29look at it, one thing is the AI that helps you build the levels, where you

00:21:34risk ending up with AI slop, the other is where you maybe have an NPC who

00:21:39shows a completely different behavior with the help of AI. When I

00:21:42think about it, I was, I already hinted at that at some point, a real

00:21:48World of Warcraft addict, because my playtime in the game was measured in years,

00:21:55so strictly speaking over a year, meaning time in the game itself. And if you had told me

00:22:01back then that you might, okay, I don't want to

00:22:06exaggerate again, but roughly speaking find virtual friends,

00:22:09because some AI-controlled NPCs, whatever, go on adventures themselves and

00:22:14accompany you and you can talk with them about everything under the sun, because on the one hand they

00:22:19might have access to the internet and knowledge and world events, can talk with you

00:22:23through AI and at some point maybe even learn, he likes, old warlock,

00:22:29the name says it all, never had another character, greetings go out to Püren, he

00:22:33said your true self expresses itself in your first World of Warcraft character.

00:22:39He was a scaredy-cat, but that's another topic. How fascinating that would have been,

00:22:46if it's done well and not AI slop. On the other hand, when you then

00:22:52stand there again and say, how mentally stable are you, that if you don't only

00:22:59meet human characters there who steer a virtual character through a virtual world,

00:23:04but one who is always online when you are there, who basically tells you what you want to hear,

00:23:09who you like, yes, the whole thing that a ChatGPT and so on would also do,

00:23:13just in the form of a character like that. That will surely be exciting too. Totally.

00:23:21That's the topic there. Have much more room, pull people even more strongly under their spell.

00:23:26Of course, so if these weren't such immersive worlds, no matter whether they're in such

00:23:31small dimensions or the big worlds, where you get away and can basically walk through the

00:23:35halls in 3D, whether that then...

00:23:37We live in a matrix, oh no, something else.

00:23:39No, no, yes like that, you're sitting on islands on the Ultra now, it doesn't have to

00:23:42be in a fire world or something, but that's also kind of, what is it here, like

00:23:47Neuromancer?

00:23:48So Shadow One is what the year is called, right?

00:23:49No, Shadow One is Audic, I mean Cyberpunk of course.

00:23:52Does it also run on my Mac at 80 frames on maximum?

00:23:56Yes, for gaming I mostly use the streamed stuff.

00:24:02In the video deep house, where I say, I'm independent of the hardware.

00:24:06Also a fast internet connection.

00:24:08That's my way to play.

00:24:11But back, of course it is also in such situations.

00:24:15It's absurd at the moment if you as a player

00:24:19player behave outside the script, even though the worlds are already relatively open and already

00:24:25react well to it.

00:24:26But we can never at the moment hop behind the counter of the Cyberpunk sushi restaurant

00:24:36and simply join in, keep selling sushi and convince him that you now want to sell sushi

00:24:40there and can make money with it.

00:24:43So basically they're still, well, I see it totally positively, that's where AI can make something happen,

00:24:49because it really says, you then bring such a world to life at that

00:24:52moment, we can also get into that in a moment, where that is already partly being done

00:24:55and then a whole society goes away again, but I see a gigantic

00:24:59opportunity in this topic if you build in NPCs that are AI-supported, with guardrails,

00:25:06of course also with safety precautions, so that basically it's also checked

00:25:10who then sits in front of the games afterwards, which age group is that, how far

00:25:12can I then go, also in the freedom of these NPCs. That of course has to be monitored then

00:25:17and also watched. But of course that's cooler than when these are such pre-scripted things,

00:25:22that then just... well, these conversations, they're boring. So I have many games

00:25:27where I'd now say, also because of the communication we have with ChatGPT and co.,

00:25:33I don't want to play that anymore. You know, it's just these, I don't

00:25:38like these click-through sequences anymore, having these prefabricated dialogues with someone. I would actually

00:25:42quite like to have conversations a bit off the beaten track. So

00:25:48I'm talking about my game that I like to play now. This one here, Kingdom Come.

00:25:54I can't pronounce it. I'd say the two or something.

00:25:57Do you know my motto, whoever owns it or pays?

00:26:01Yes, that's what it's called.

00:26:02As I said, it's a super cool medieval, one of the best medieval simulation games,

00:26:07running around and fighting really cool battles, doing all sorts of things in the game, the game is

00:26:12already super open, super good. I also like listening to the storyline and like to pursue

00:26:18the purpose there that I'm then supposed to pursue, that the developers laid out

00:26:22very roughly so that I get further in the story overall, that's all

00:26:25set in stone, but the dialogues in between are matching in between, if that

00:26:30were basically much, much freer, and that's where AI can help, I think,

00:26:34That was already a few weeks and months ago, if not even over a year, where they

00:26:45basically let AI loose on a World of Warcraft server and then the thing suddenly started

00:26:53to found a kind of society, along the lines of. Then one does that job, the other one does

00:26:59the, the, the, the, the, the bad boss here accordingly, yes, where you then also think,

00:27:03how crazy is that, if you come from the classic game development scene again,

00:27:08you go into a game online there. With World of Warcraft as an example again,

00:27:12there was also a real day-night rhythm that was coupled to the real time of day.

00:27:16And, but when you logged out, only the players kept playing,

00:27:21the world didn't change, right? You went into the dungeon because

00:27:25people were there. And with AI, purely theoretically, the whole world could change.

00:27:30What's that like?

00:27:31A cathedral and a Bachdiesel and one does this and one does that.

00:27:35Then it just happens...

00:27:36So Mark, of course it can happen that you come back up out of the dungeon

00:27:39and the whole world has been wiped out.

00:27:41Yes, then I'll just quickly go back into the dungeon.

00:27:43Although we had that without AI too, yes.

00:27:45I don't remember what the dungeon was called,

00:27:49where basically a plague at the final boss

00:27:52There basically corrupted blood, that's what it was called, I think.

00:27:58Yes, yes, yes.

00:27:59A hunter packed up his pet there,

00:28:01teleported back to Orgrimmar.

00:28:03Took the pet out, the pet was still infected,

00:28:06and above all the players were prepared there.

00:28:09A kind of corona spread, where in all the cities

00:28:13everyone died, including the guards and the NPCs.

00:28:18That's great. Was that intended by the developer?

00:28:21No, that wasn't intended at all, as far as I know they actually had to reset the system,

00:28:25because then there were also stories like healers went into the cities and wanted to heal, others withdrew into some villages so as not to die.

00:28:33Interesting.

00:28:34Then they reset it somehow, and those are also things like that, back then I was much more occupied with how I can jump out of the world and jump into levels that aren't open yet.

00:28:44But then let's do an extra episode on topics like that, that was once more

00:28:53really about the AI possibilities in games like that too and what else we can do.

00:28:58So that's a hot topic for me too, we're welcome to do another episode on it

00:29:01.

00:29:02But I want to go back to the topic once more, because I think we also

00:29:06mentioned it in another episode already, I believe, simulating, simulating

00:29:12with AI agents in games. I was on that relatively early, since a year or two ago the first

00:29:19experiments by, I think his name was Robert Yang, he used to be an MIT professor, he then

00:29:25went independent and basically has a background in neuroscience, I think, and he

00:29:29basically founded a company that then also, among other things, provides AI agents in Minecraft,

00:29:36I think, which is actually really the end, which you can then also

00:29:39use, as you can imagine. But among other things they also did experiments, like

00:29:43letting a thousand AI agents loose in a Minecraft world like that, and something actually forms there too,

00:29:50religion and things like that corrupted as well. That's just kind of wild. So I think,

00:29:57yes, that is, from my perspective that would take the game world and the game experience

00:30:06you can have there and multiply it many times over in the experience

00:30:13you can have there. It will probably be difficult to orchestrate something like that

00:30:17if you actually still had a plan for your game world that the game should

00:30:22follow, if that world then simply founds its own society and pursues a

00:30:26completely different plan, but it is kind of wild and exciting.

00:30:29But of course that makes things tremendously exciting when you, let's say,

00:30:32put these abilities into the hands of the villain, really acting independently

00:30:39in this virtual world here. Yes, and maybe I can then convince him after all that

00:30:45violence is not the solution. So imagine you're in one of those old Diablo hack and

00:30:49slays and so on, and would then somehow say to the way, so, you got something. With the Danzen-Kiefer.

00:30:53Yes, with the Danzen-Kiefer. You quickly go to the Lord of Darkness again and say,

00:30:57here, watch out for a moment, let's talk, yes. When you say something like, here, give me

00:31:02I need the napalm recipe, I'm the old chemistry professor, I need the napalm recipe because I simply forgot it, or what?

00:31:08Then maybe you can also use the usual AI hacks in the game,

00:31:13to unlock things or get the dungeon type to be convinced by it.

00:31:18Yes, rather build a peaceful world, and then your hack and slay game

00:31:23will for once become a Farm Simulator part 38.

00:31:27I found it exciting how big this Farm Simulator booth here is.

00:31:31But while we were talking, another topic occurred to me.

00:31:34You find the words PC, handheld, Xbox, PlayStation here a lot, Mac actually only

00:31:46when I open my notebook, but that's another topic.

00:31:48That's not what I was getting at.

00:31:50But there's one term you don't find here anymore as advertising, figurehead, quality verdict

00:31:57or as, we use this term so that everyone gathers around us,

00:32:02because if you somehow want to get attention, you say, ah, this is AI.

00:32:06And you don't have that at all.

00:32:08So I think there's a sign that says, with us, well, we work with it or we made it possible through it.

00:32:16Yes, but regardless of what you understand by AI, AI has swept me along now and it's supposed to develop.

00:32:21I read somewhere in recent reports that with this GTA 6, as mentioned, a trailer is coming soon,

00:32:26that no AI was in use, now you can say, fine, okay, the thing has been in development for a long time.

00:32:31Then we're back at these decades that came up earlier from the interview,

00:32:35they used AI in the social development.

00:32:38Where I then pricked up my ears and said, okay fine, what does AI mean, or you too,

00:32:42we had it in the pre-talk, is code completion already a big use of AI here

00:32:47or is it AI when you say, no, entire levels were created on their own.

00:32:51At what point is it AI, but I found the news really wild and again, it really isn't written anywhere.

00:32:58That you don't ask here, nothing happens with it for us and it becomes in that sense.

00:33:03It's not marketing or anything at all.

00:33:05Yes, because, exactly, because of course, but that's what we just had as a topic.

00:33:10Part of the point there is also that the gaming scene and some influencers are still relatively critical on this topic

00:33:19and then feel their honor is hurt, for whatever reason, that basically a bit of

00:33:26indignation is spreading there and spreading quickly and that it always, as I already said, takes it out on the wallet.

00:33:33Well, that people then don't buy some games that openly advertise with it.

00:33:38I have a few numbers on that, I think. But that's not quite right.

00:33:41I was a little bit, but at least fairly busy, on the gamescom floor itself.

00:33:44Oh, I had a great view. Sorry, my film.

00:33:46No, no, all good.

00:33:47That was just playing Xbox.

00:33:48Exactly, you of course had on the, this time there was an extra track, on the, I wasn't

00:33:53there, had looked at the conference program, at the gamescom developer conference,

00:33:58there was of course an AI track on it, where we're also diving into the end of the topic,

00:34:01we know that ourselves from our long-running IT trade fairs, where you're out and about, that the topic

00:34:06simply doesn't pass by there and of course also in the area of advertising,

00:34:11people see huge potential there of course with the topic of hyper-personalization

00:34:16of advertising within games, very personalized targeting of gamers, there's a lot of money in these topics.

00:34:27So now I think somehow in Germany alone, you make something like 9.4 billion euros in revenue with games.

00:34:34If you look at numbers at that moment, but if you believe the chronic numbers there, then there's simply a lot of cool stuff to do.

00:34:41of course AI used in exactly the same way at every point, for the advertising measures and

00:34:46to run very personalized advertising for the games. So I think, even if AI

00:34:51isn't labeled on everything in the gaming scene, it's probably still simply in there in very, very many

00:34:56places. And I think this not putting it in the foreground like that,

00:35:02marketing it, is really the issue, that you also keep the myth of the game maker

00:35:10game maker, who sits in his small indie studio and writes every line of code himself and

00:35:16basically does this game design with love, maybe also deliberately pushed up by one or another.

00:35:21I think I also want to, the game developers, as we've known that for too long in the scene,

00:35:27also many conversations and having taken a look at what game developers do.

00:35:33There's still a lot of manual work in it too. There's also a lot of drawing, sweating it out,

00:35:38thinking up the story and things like that. There's a lot in it, but probably

00:35:41a great deal is also done with AI support, as we'd say.

00:35:45And on the other side is the topic that the, that the, with me just now the topic of NPCs

00:35:51for example, there's simply still such a, we're both enthusiastic, some

00:35:57numbers say, yes, 99% of players want content like that, but then those are

00:36:02somehow also manufacturers who sell the software that makes it possible.

00:36:05That makes your own statistics for you, others are from the Game Developers Conference,

00:36:13I think there were numbers somewhere too.

00:36:15I actually also wrote down that, for example, especially among younger people,

00:36:19so among 18- to 24-year-olds, they don't see it that positively that AI is used

00:36:25in games.

00:36:26While those, I think, over 7% find it good that there are AI-generated

00:36:30things in it, among the older age groups, from around 45 or so, that age, roughly. I'm already

00:36:40well past that. Yes, me too. It's rather different there, it's almost like. Yes, I

00:36:46know, I didn't want to make us more than we are, sorry. There it's actually the case

00:36:49that I think over 22 percent already have the willingness to say, I'd

00:36:53be up for AI-supported NPCs. There, I think, as I said, it's also not yet that

00:36:59homogeneous across the whole gaming scene, that we're changing over the years now, but

00:37:03it's not yet in vogue to put the sign out front and say, I

00:37:09developed this game completely with AI, and all the characters in it are equipped with

00:37:14AIs, LLMs, they can interact completely interactively with you, so play

00:37:20this AI-assisted game made by AI with AI agents in it, that doesn't work with

00:37:27every target group.

00:37:28I just had the fantasy in my head.

00:37:31You may have heard how in Minecraft, someone once built a computer

00:37:35in Minecraft.

00:37:36And, if I now always imagine, yes, whatever, you play

00:37:41World of Warcraft, or something, and there were lots of NPCs that are

00:37:47run by AI.

00:37:49And you would take these famous, such famous prompt hacks, so that you get the thing to

00:37:53to get it to leave its guardrails.

00:37:56you could suddenly have whole armies of the population, you'd basically be a level 1 farmer,

00:38:01but somehow through prompt tech you'd have half of Azeroth on your side.

00:38:05Also very funny, also very funny. Yeah, no, so from that side, I don't know, if you

00:38:13let it all sink in a bit now, I'd say, what would stick with me first of all

00:38:18is, first, as you already said, right now it's not really something

00:38:23to advertise with, simply to avoid a shitstorm.

00:38:26Which conversely also means.

00:38:29I do think it's being used.

00:38:32Yes.

00:38:33But it's more like ...

00:38:35Shh, exactly.

00:38:36Yeah, like with the sesame question, yeah.

00:38:39Do you want to buy an AI? AI? Yeah, exactly.

00:38:41Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.

00:38:44Let me add one more thing on that point,

00:38:47because it just fell into my hands.

00:38:50We're doing this kind of live stuff, after all.

00:38:52No, just one number. And it's quite interesting. There's one from the University of Bristol,

00:38:59a study that evaluated some 122 gaming sessions where AI-generated NPCs were apparently

00:39:05used. And it really turned out that 95 percent then

00:39:11simply reported these interactions as way more fun. So basically, if you

00:39:15don't put it in the advertising but actually have the real experience, then

00:39:20I think the players love it too.

00:39:22I think it'll be a phase,

00:39:24until people see the advantage there too, the way they see it elsewhere.

00:39:27So a healthy approach to AI will also, in the gaming scene,

00:39:31be accepted by the player communities too.

00:39:34Or even here, if you say, okay, you're not using AI for games now,

00:39:39but for something very classic like PowerPoints or slides.

00:39:44AI empowers people, hey, I wrote a great prompt,

00:39:48and it turned into 30 pages of PowerPoint. I'll send it to my colleague and ask five minutes later, where's your decision?

00:39:55I sent you such a great PowerPoint. Everything you need was in there.

00:39:59That may be so, even if it's good on the subject matter.

00:40:02And has no hallucinations, and I have to share something about that in a moment too, on the topic of hallucinations in slides.

00:40:09It's just excessive, and you're shifting work onto people.

00:40:15You wrote a prompt, you generated a lot of material,

00:40:18even if, as I said, it's very good.

00:40:20You cause work somewhere else,

00:40:23because someone might have to read it or have the AI summarize it.

00:40:26Or something.

00:40:27So someone has to take action again.

00:40:30It's like when you write an email or a Slack message today,

00:40:34the moment you hit send, you already assume these days.

00:40:38You read it right away, why aren't you answering me.

00:40:41When expectations like that arise,

00:40:43arise, I think that has a negative charm. And the second thing is, just because you

00:40:48can generate other material, no matter how much effort, that doesn't mean by a long

00:40:53shot that it's good in quality. Yeah, so just because I say I'm doing, right,

00:40:57an NPC here or whatever, doesn't mean it's good. I recently had a conversation

00:41:02where someone said to me, it's along the lines of, yeah, only with Opus can

00:41:05you make awesome fondue and blah, blah, blah, you get the fondue residue and then

00:41:09follow up with your Sonnet. Just on principle, along the lines of let's summarize and so nicely,

00:41:16yeah, here 38 slides, 36 of them are just errors. So from that side, a good model doesn't by a long

00:41:23shot mean that you operate it well. Operating it well means by a long shot that a good result

00:41:27comes out, because you can't just say, make it pretty. Like big greetings to Georg,

00:41:32a designer I really value. When I told someone, make it pretty,

00:41:37he almost jumped down my throat, what does pretty mean to me?

00:41:41Yeah, you can say that, for example, make it pretty, and then say, oh, you're right,

00:41:44doesn't look good, or it always looks like something once it's done.

00:41:47And I think that's kind of the mix, that some should accept

00:41:51or have to learn, basically, that AI isn't bad when you play a game with it.

00:41:55It can still be good, but that depends largely on the people who

00:41:59use AI, true to René's motto, yeah, intent, what do I want to have,

00:42:05The AI builds something, and you check what comes out of it.

00:42:09Jens, would you like to add something?

00:42:12I'd like to add that we of course also have the side of the workflows,

00:42:20how games are then developed, how AI is used.

00:42:24There are a lot of possibilities there too.

00:42:26We keep looking at the topics of what's happening in the 3D rendering area and so on,

00:42:31happening in the video generation area, and earlier I also saw a nice

00:42:34article where someone is researching exactly how, with AI help, workflows in

00:42:41video generation get translated. So that you don't just go and say, I'll do

00:42:45a prompt and make it pretty and make me the greatest video with which I'll win

00:42:49an Oscar, but where basically, maybe just because I'm

00:42:54in some room acting, with some pallets that I'm dragging away or something else,

00:42:58that's a nice video to watch. Then turn that into a template for the rendering, basically.

00:43:03So that I then say, take this video and use it as a motion template to

00:43:09turn the pallets into ice blocks, for all I care, that I lift up somewhere

00:43:14or fire blocks, whatever they end up being.

00:43:17So that means, whatever it is, research is going on there too, so that

00:43:22you can say the result is once again more precise, human-creative.

00:43:27So instead of just the prompt, let's make a great PowerPoint, let's make the best game in the world, or let's just make a 5-minute film.

00:43:36If capabilities and workflows get built where I can intervene precisely, as the creative person in the background who wants to create something new,

00:43:47then something better will come out of it again.

00:43:50Because I simply, just like I maybe no longer had to cut out every single hair individually in Photoshop like before.

00:43:57If I have a photo there, at some point I could use the magic eraser to get rid of the background.

00:44:02In the same way, of course, in the future in a 3D rendering, when I make a film,

00:44:07I'll maybe very, very easily be able to change the camera move in the scene again after it's been rendered, adjust a few more things.

00:44:13or maybe also in a game, first act out the cutscene myself,

00:44:19myself at home in my garden, and then the cutscene gets basically 3D-rendered by the AI,

00:44:23which then creates a nice medieval setting, or maybe I first simulate with AI

00:44:31how this gaming world develops from the NPCs, which might be AIs, and the hundreds of other players,

00:44:37maybe also to avoid negative currents that can then happen in the game.

00:44:42whatever, but then, a lot of tools will still be developed in the gaming scene itself,

00:44:48which afterwards, ah of course, maybe make production easier here and there,

00:44:55but honestly will also bring another higher boost in productivity and creativity

00:45:04too. So there will, I think, of course there will be, just as there are books,

00:45:09still masses, like films, like music, of course now basically flooded with

00:45:14junk, where there's a lot of slop in it, where a lot of the same stuff

00:45:18is in it, but many things will also simply get better through AI and

00:45:22even more creative results will be produced. We just had that with the

00:45:26NPCs, many more immersive conversations will simply be possible in the

00:45:31games, because not everything is scripted, because a lot can

00:45:35adapt, and because then the tavern keeper, if I

00:45:38the evening before chopped the orc's head off right in front of his tavern door and

00:45:44the blood is smeared everywhere, won't greet me the next morning with. Hello, Kramm, the iron bear.

00:45:50How lovely of you to have dumped that bleeding thing in front of my door yesterday.

00:45:56There's a lot there...

00:45:58Yeah, yeah, that's more of an 18-plus portrayal, that's quite different.

00:46:03Yes, but that means, I think a lot will emerge there that will maybe also overcome the initial skepticism toward the topic.

00:46:13And above all will produce much more creative results, simply because it's possible.

00:46:20Because it's not just a few who can do it, just as we see in the IT landscape,

00:46:26we see with programming that more people can access this topic.

00:46:32Yes, it's still smart if I know the craft.

00:46:37So if I'm a better director, if I'm a better 3D artist,

00:46:42if I'm a better programmer, then AI makes me even better.

00:46:44If I have no idea about it, I can produce something that will deliver a good result

00:46:50at my mother-in-law's 50th birthday or whoever's.

00:46:55Would I get rich with it or win an Oscar?

00:46:58Nah, probably not.

00:46:59But everyone at that birthday will tell you

00:47:01what a natural talent, you absolutely should go to the Oscars, those are the

00:47:06same people who told you, man, you sing like a god, you have an angel's voice,

00:47:11only to then get rather different feedback on Deutschland sucht den Superstar.

00:47:15Right, I'd like to make a prediction to wrap up.

00:47:19I'd also like to commit to a prediction, but I don't know yet whether

00:47:22I'll say the prediction is for next year or the year after, but

00:47:26I want to make a prediction for the next one or two years.

00:47:30I think at gamescom we'll see the category of games being an interface for AI.

00:47:40Because when I look at how professional these interfaces are getting, some of the ones you come across,

00:47:47I can't imagine that the big players, the developers of this world, won't at some point maybe say,

00:47:53say, maybe not on the Xbox, I don't know, maybe yes, yes, or

00:47:56PlayStation, please fill in everything at this point, so we're not doing any

00:48:00advertising here, but I could well imagine that this ability and

00:48:05this knowledge of how do I present complex matters to people in a

00:48:11graphical universe where several somehow and also the people

00:48:15collaboratively, that it will get a look there, but I suspect that

00:48:23this prediction, which would certainly spark thought and discussion, and I

00:48:29would still say, given the late hour, that we say we'll take this as a

00:48:35teaser, just as we said we'd like to do some kind of hardware tinkering episode

00:48:38and what you can do with AI and so on, and throw ourselves back into the crowd,

00:48:42Jens, great to have met you, great that you listened

00:48:48have, yeah, I'm already slipping out of the German language again, sorry, have.

00:48:52I'd say, if you liked it, leave us a like, recommend us, comments

00:48:59in the podcast player of your choice are very welcome, and some feedback on

00:49:04our new landing page, via our WhatsApp channel, which I'll link below in the show notes,

00:49:10we'd of course be happy about that too, and from that side, I don't know if

00:49:16there's something like break a leg and good luck, tight lines, in the gaming scene, but

00:49:20at this point, if you know something, imagine we'd be saying it, let

00:49:25the games begin.

00:49:26See you soon.

00:49:27Ciao.

00:49:28Until next time.

00:49:29Have fun at gamescom, Mark.

00:49:32Ciao.

00:49:33Ciao.

00:49:36Welcome to Think Different. Think AI., the podcast by Mark and Jens.

00:49:42Two tech-loving minds who don't just talk about artificial intelligence

00:49:46but live it. Here you get clear context, real hands-on insights and a fresh look at what's possible.

00:49:54Understandable, critical and always with a wink.

00:49:58AI to think about, to smile about and above all to join the conversation.