Remember Quantic Foundry’s Gamer Motivation Survey? That’s the massive research project from Dr. Nick Yee and colleagues that’s been polling gamers about what drives them to play for the last decade. We first covered the so-called Gamer Motivation Model as a possible expansion to Dr. Richard Bartle’s work way back in 2015, then we took it again in 2021. Now, the survey data are confirming our priors once again: Gamers kinda hate generative AI.
Just before the new year, Yee released findings from the survey related to AI.
“In an optional survey (N=1,799) we ran from October through December 2025 alongside the Gamer Motivation Profile, we invited gamers to answer additional questions after they had looked at their profile results. Some of these questions were specifically about attitudes towards Gen AI in video games. […] Overall, the attitude towards the use of Gen AI in video games is very negative. 85% of respondents have a below-neutral attitude towards the use of Gen AI in video games, with a highly-skewed 63% who selected the most negative response option.”
Yee says that a negative response like this is “rare.” Notably, women and non-binary gamers are even more negative about AI than men, younger gamers are more negative than older gamers, and – critically, “The more a gamer cares about storytelling and customization, the more negative they are about Gen AI in video games.” You probably could’ve guessed all that, but it’s nice to see it confirmed by numbers – actual numbers, not just figments dreamed up by ChatGPT. It’s worth a quick read if you’re just as annoyed as everyone else who’s paying attention.