Introduction:

The AI industry has been rapidly expanding in the last quarter of the century , especially when looking at society’s interaction with it. As a society we have started to become reliant on AI to a certain extent. To dive deeper, in the gaming industry AI has been on the rise.  In 2025, the game of the year was awarded to Claire Obscure: Expedition  33. After the awards, it was revealed that the assets that won awards had been made in collaboration with AI. This posed a large question into peoples minds, is the use of AI within gaming justifiable? AI has been used for the last decade in game development;  however, its presence was not always as evident. When AI is mentioned, most people will naturally think of Chat-GPT and other chat bots. However, AI has appeared previously in a number of different forms. From character Dialogue to procedural world generation, different forms of AI have become a mainstay in the gaming biosphere. Notably massive games like Minecraft, Risk of Rain 2, and No Man’s Sky have used different forms of procedural generation from simple loot tables to entire galaxies.

STS Connection:

When mentioning AI, it is nearly impossible to ignore all the technological and societal waves that have been formed after its inception. Chatbots and other forms of AI are impressive technological feats; they are costly and powerful machines capable of learning and generating content to a certain extent. When looking for a connection between these technological feats and society, it is hard to overlook controversy. AI has been at the epicenter of controversy to the large majority of its lifespan. While the benefits and/or downsides of AI are still constantly being explored, it is safe to say that it plays a huge role in how technology and our society interact. There are people who fully support AI and it’s development, they believe that innovations in AI will in turn help cause innovations in every walk of life. Others despise AI and hold no place for it in the world. Exploring the intricacies of these differing voices and finding the hidden ones among the crowd are how STS plays a role in AI’s development into the gaming industry.

Topic Information:

The Game Awards are held every year near the end of the year. They are held to determine which game provided the best experience using its creative medium. Many awards are available, but it’s the most coveted game of the year. A combination of Community and Jury votes are polled, with the majority of the weight being from the jury. After the voting period concludes, an event takes place where multiple trophies and awards are handed out. When it was revealed that Expedition 33 had partnered with AI tools and happened to win Game of The Year, a massive controversy swept through the gaming community. Game of The Year is an award granted by The Game Awards, an association the consists of a judging panel designed to judge games as unbiasedly as possible. It is awarded upon the game that is judged to have delivered the best experience in its creative medium. While it was mostly full of jokes and satirical statements made by people who wished for their favorite games to have won instead of Expedition 33, there was still an underlying question on whether the use of AI had diminished the value of the final game project. Both sides debated online and in person with opinions ranging anywhere from support to demands of disqualification. Eventually a statement was made, and the award was officially retracted from expedition 33. Ai is still a touchy subject for gamers, but most have started viewing it as a tool to enhance the pass time they enjoy. With advancements in AI and its use for gaming, many developer jobs are starting to become redundant, AI integrated game development platforms have made it more feasible to design larger games with fewer developers. The morality is still at play, game development is fundamentally an art form. As seen in the early 2020s the use of AI to generate images was harshly critiqued by traditional artists. Notably in recent years companies that have used AI generated images in promotional material experienced massive and visible losses in engagement within the teen and young adult demographic. As described by some online aficionados, AI is seen as a cheap most young adults growing up in this generation are able to identify AI images with higher than average accuracy. When an image is identified as being AI many people associate that with the company being cheap and lazy, thus leading to a negative view on the product itself despite what the actual quality of the product may be. A point of consideration is the similarities between peoples reactions to AI and the uncanny valley effect.  As defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Uncanny valley refers to a certain level or stage of lifelikeness (as of a doll, computer-animated character, robot, etc.) that is past the point of being impressive or endearing and is instead disconcerting, creepy, or just off.” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) AI seemingly has an effect that resembles Uncanny valley on young adults. These young adults could be considered a hidden voice within AI’s rise in gaming. While not the most vocal, the effects of their opinions and judgments are clearly visible. From expedition 33 receiving sudden immense backlash, to companies permanently losing parts of their consumer base, younger demographics have had groups that have made waves in the AI controversy. This is not to say AI is all bad, AI has a place in our society and in our gaming industry. That place has simply not been determined or accepted by the populace. AI is here to stay, so all that is left is to see whether it stays as a bystander or as an integral cog in the machine.

Conclusion:

AI is on the rise, not only in gaming but in our everyday lives. The advancements it brings to future games are mostly constrained by social and technical acceptance. While it may have a place in gaming as a whole, whether or not it infringes on creativity when paired with designers is a social hurdle that must be passed before the implementation of AI sees wider spread in the industry as a whole. As AI becomes smarter and faster, will the benefits of this new assistant exceed the drawbacks it may bring? How much will the environment suffer for our gaming needs? Will development teams be reduced to singular people? Or will gaming as a whole experience a new revolution comparable to the development of 3d graphics in the 1900s?

Library Databases:

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AI Disclosure Statement:

I acknowledge the use of Open-Ai’s CHAT-GPT 5,2, (https://chatgpt.comLinks to an external site.) with a premium personal account. That chatbot was used to double check formatting issues, and identify whether sources were in APA format. Over the course of a few months in 2026 the chat bot was used for both formatting and as a research assistant. For formatting, sections were pasted into chat GPT and then adjusted based on mistakes made.

**Special thanks to Professor Anne Grant, a professor, librarian, and historian, for her invaluable assistance in finding sources and discussing the contents of this chapter.