Verona resident Katie DeJarlais dreams of working as an artist for a film company or a video game developer, creating animated characters and environments for people to enjoy.
But after earning a graduate degree in video game development and building up a work portfolio, DeJarlais feels close to giving up on that dream. A year of job hunting has left her frustrated by the industry’s adoption of artificial intelligence.
“(The jobs) either barely exist or they’re telling you that they want you to use the AI tools in your work,” DeJarlais said. “Creating art is something that makes a lot of people very happy, and it’s an outlet for creative expression. As we’re cheapening it into something you can make instantly, it’s going to discourage people from making art.”
DeJarlais graduated in June 2024 from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, where the sticker price for annual tuition is over $40,000. She moved to Verona after graduation to live with family.
“It’s like, why am I even bothering at this point if they could just ask a robot to do it five times faster than I ever could?” she said.
The use of AI in video game development varies by company. Last year, an industry survey of 3,000 game developers found nearly half reported generative AI tools being used in their workplaces even though most developers had ethical concerns about its use.
A Wire magazine investigation found the growth of AI last year had contributed to widespread layoffs in the industry, including at major studios like Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard — the parent company of Raven Software in Middleton.
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Microsoft is moving away from video games in general as it invests more in AI for its Windows software, said B.J. Best, a Carroll University professor who teaches video game design and art. Microsoft leaders say the company is on track to invest $80 billion in AI data centers this year.
As part of forecasting how AI could affect Dane County’s economy, the state Department of Workforce Development this year called all kinds of software developers a “prime example of an occupation” that will likely be affected by the technology’s growth. Software developers represent the seventh largest occupation in the county, the department reported.
While skeptical if AI in video game development is a large contributor to recent layoffs in the industry, Best said the technology certainly isn’t spurring companies to hire.
“The industry, even prior to AI, has been shedding employees,” Best said. “This certainly is not going to encourage studios to hire additional employees when they think they can get certain work done by AI.”
Filament Games, a Madison-based studio that specializes in learning games, is using AI to prototype phases of game development such as story drafting or editing, said Alex Stone, the company’s chief technology officer. Filament isn’t using AI for production visuals, Stone said.
While AI could help increase the productivity of an artist, decrease team sizes or allow teams to create larger games, Stone said human art remains valuable to game players.
“When it comes to making a piece of art or expression or media for human consumption, humans will always do it better,” Stone said. “It’s not just a question of intelligence. It’s a question of embodiment in the human experience, which AI will never get to.”
DeJarlais and others said other companies are starting to use generative AI for production visuals. While AI isn’t completely cutting artists from the video game industry, it seems to be replacing the first few steps of an artist’s process. Jobs are shifting toward editing AI artwork rather than designing from scratch.
“Essentially they’ll ask it (AI) to generate an image of a character who looks like this, acts like this, has these colors, and then it’ll spit some things out for you,” DeJarlais said.
Andrew Williams, a University of Wisconsin-Stout professor who teaches game design and development, said AI-driven shifts in design could allow artists to produce more work or polish other areas of their work, but it could also limit the individuality of a creation.
“It allows you to leverage a greater scale of output,” Williams said. “On the flip side, if you wind up just editing images and you’re doing that kind of touch up stuff, then that really kind of reduces the scope.”
Video game players are calling AI-generated work “AI slop” as a form of rebellion and critique of the product’s quality, Best said. Artists, writers and other creatives in the field also share a general negative sentiment toward AI, he said.
“The overall vibe that I’m understanding from a variety of creative disciplines is that creatives aren’t necessarily welcoming this with open arms,” Best said.
The U.S. video game industry contributed nearly $66 billion to the country’s GDP and employed 350,000 people in 2023, according to the International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Knowing how to use AI is becoming an essential skill in the video game development field, said Williams, from UW-Stout. He teaches courses on 3D game art and game production, and includes AI-based assignments in his classes. The most important thing is knowing the strengths and limitations of AI, Williams said.
The video game industry has undergone rounds of layoffs for a variety of reasons, he said. Studios are operating under “razor thin margins,” especially as companies merge and duplicate roles get eliminated. Greater consumer interest during the pandemic is also slowing.
“The industry during the pandemic really grew a whole bunch to meet this demand that was there with people’s free time, and then now we’re kind of trailing out of that,” Williams said.
An industry survey last year by the Game Developers Conference found 11% of developers reported getting laid off that year. Narrative-related positions — including writers, designers and artists — made up the largest segment of laid off workers.
DeJarlais said jobs seeking game designers to work with AI feels like a “big, scary red flashing sign” that artists will be fired when the technology advances further. She said working with AI would remove her “voice” or signature style in designing characters and environments.
“It’s just becoming a product, more than a way of expressing yourself,” she said.
While prospects for a job in game design are slim, DeJarlais is “pivoting more to the technical side” of her field and applying for 3D sculpting work. She enjoys the work, though she said it feels more mechanical than creative.
Stone at Filament Games said the long-term effects of AI in the gaming industry remain up in the air as the technology evolves. “Tools that increase productivity are generally good for everybody in the long run” but unregulated AI could leave artists uncompensated for their work, he said.