How AI is shaping how we game

AI is everywhere, the chances are if you’re on our site then you’ve noticed! One of the places that we maybe don’t think so much about AI and its implications is when we’re gaming. After all, for many of us this is a time to switch off from reality and properly relax.

The world of gaming is one of the industries where AI is having some of its most pronounced effects. We’re going to take a look at a handful of the ways that AI is changing the way we game.

AI is enhancing NPCs

One of the most interesting ways that AI is being used is to train NPCs (non-playable characters) to behave in a more human way. This means that they can react to their environment – for example, if it’s raining they might move to stand under a tree, or pull out an umbrella. They can also react differently depending on the choices of a character, for example, if you ask them for money they might behave rudely, whereas if you offer them a gift, they might be friendly and grateful. Beyond this, they’re being trained in more complex behaviours like competition – think about the brothers in Red Dead Redemption II who are constantly at loggerheads with one another. All of these traits make interacting with NPCs a joy rather than a chore.

AI in online casinos

Online casinos are often at the forefront of technological advances when it comes to making use of them to give their customers something new to try out. AI has been pivotal in this, enabling online casinos to better understand what users want from their experience, as well as how to keep them safe. For the latter, AI has been put to great use in detecting unusual behaviour on user accounts. This can be indicative of fraud. So, AI flags the behaviour to the fraud team who can check it out and prevent anything bad from happening. This works so effectively because AI is so much better than humans (not to mention faster) at spotting patterns. As soon as there’s a blip in the usual pattern, AI can spot it, freeing up human time for other tasks.

We’re going to head to social casinos to look at the other asset of AI, being able to understand what users want. Social casinos are just like the usual online casinos, but people can enjoy games without financial stakes. This is another field in which AI plays an important role, particularly in the case of recommending games. Many social casinos have a dynamic homepage, where players are shown a selection of games that are curated for them, using AI. This isn’t the only way that AI is shaping the social casino landscape, in fact, you can check on Oddschecker for in-depth analyses and comparisons of leading platforms in this space.

AI adjusts difficulty and content

How about how AI is performing in the world of console games? Some of the true blockbusters are employing AI to create a gaming experience that’s even closer to life than we thought possible. One of the ways that AI is being put to great use is in the realm of narratives.

AI is creating personalised experiences by generating dynamic storylines and quests based on player actions. This means that one player won’t receive the same storyline as another. This level of personalisation was sort of possible before, but it took thousands of man-hours to make everything work seamlessly. Now, this level of customisation can even extend to adaptive difficulty, where AI adjusts the game’s challenge in real-time to match a player’s skill level. So, if you’ve found that a game is getting a bit easier, it might be worth double-checking that AI isn’t helping you out a little!

AI excels in terms of visuals too. Technologies like AI upscaling improve textures by converting lower-resolution images to high resolution, by reducing noise. Another fascinating bit of technology is called ray tracing. This creates realistic lighting conditions, like light bouncing off puddles, or raindrops shadowing a face. It’s these intricate details that are making the hyperreal games of tomorrow come to life today.