How will generative AI transform the games industry over the coming decade? Made up of some of the most successful and experienced executives in the games industry, edenic is a new games management company that has thought long and hard about this transformation and how to be a catalyst for it.
I recently spoke with Founding Partner Clive Downie (x-CMO Unity, x-COO Zynga, x-CEO DeNA West) about his amazing career in gaming, the inspiration for edenic and how they envision the AI driven transformation of the games industry over the next decade.
Here is a (lightly edited) highlight from our conversation:
Clive “At edenic, our role is to be a catalyst within this AI revolution and to help the games industry move into what we believe is its next era.
“We see three phases to this transformation, and we’re actively making moves in each of them, acquiring companies that are favored by or strategic to the change we see coming.
“Phase One: the practical application of AI within existing frameworks and workflows.
“We’re already seeing it. AI is going to dramatically reduce costs, bring average team sizes down, and improve productivity across game ideation, development, live services, go-to-market, and marketing.
“That unlocks enormous latent value in today’s industry by allowing creators to create more. And if creators can make more games, more good things will happen. The unit cost of making a game comes down dramatically - fewer people, better tools, less time - and what you end up with is a Cambrian explosion of creativity.
“Phase Two: the industry revolution — a creative renaissance and a new economy.
“If far more people are making games at a far lower unit cost, and you can solve the new publishing and distribution opportunities required to match that content to new fan bases, you get an entirely new economy.
“As an example: you can make a game for $10,000 over three months. You don’t need to make $10 million back, or even $1 million back. You can make $100,000 back and have a great standard of living. It can be your life.
“Inspiring that moment, and being a catalyst for it, is phase two. With a Cambrian explosion of content, how does edenic help create the new publishing and distribution paradigms that put the creator first. Where the creator can be their own publisher and reach their thousand true fans?
“Phase Three: the new age of games built on world models.
“Phases one and two are still predicated on games being made the way they are today. Games have been made the same way for 30, 40, 50 years: a player character, non-player characters, a map, all compiled with code that runs through an engine. It’s an abstract way of describing it, but it’s accurate.
“The map can be a 3D world with tens of millions of assets or a 2D grid. There can be thousands of NPCs or just one. The player character can be deeply customizable or just a sprite. It doesn’t matter — the architecture is the same.
“In the future, our sense is that’s not how games will be made. When world models become the de facto way for creators to transcribe their ideas into fully managed interactive experiences, with weights and models as the drivers of that world model, we enter a new epoch for the games industry.
“You get a seamless blending of interactive and linear entertainment, with experiences personalized to the wants and interests of the audience. I don’t think we can even predict what those experiences will be like when they’re powered by world models and authored on top of them.”
This is just a snippet of my captivating discussion with Clive about the edenic mission and the future of AI native game development. Do yourself a favor and listen to the full conversation embedded above.
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