Key Takeaways
inZOI's character creator employs techniques such as live-link face integration with Unreal, but of greater concern is generative AI. Krafton has been very open about its use of generative AI to cut costs, raising ethical concerns about industry duties and copyright infringement. inZOI doesn't appear to have implemented much generative AI so far, but it's clear that Krafton is using it heavily in the game's development.
Crafton's upcoming life sim, inZOI, has been described by avid gamers as a Sims killer. Given that EA's Sims series has dominated the genre for decades, and as a result has been able to price its products as exploitatively as it likes, people are craving something new, and inZOI seems the most likely candidate to replace it.
I spent some time (probably too much time) with inZOI's character creator earlier this week, and was pretty impressed with its features. It doesn't hurt that the graphics are beautiful, with surprisingly realistic and perfectly model-like characters, and that it challenges the cartoonish style of The Sims. But even with just that creator, I found some hesitations, and digging deeper only made me more wary.
AI generation is already happening at InZOI
inZOI relies heavily on technology that The Sims hasn't come close to implementing, such as linking the character creator to Unreal's Live Link Face app on your phone to give Zoi specific facial expressions. Full-body motion capture is also in development.
But this technological advancement also means that the game is packed with AI generation: Playing around with outfits in the character creator, I found that not only can you customize the color of almost every piece of clothing, but you can also use the generative AI tools to create custom textures, or even turn photos into textures to layer onto items.
Similarly, you can take a photo of an object and feed it into our internal generative AI tools to create a 3D model that you can then place in Zoi's environment. On the surface, this is pretty cool – I'd love to be able to take a photo of my favorite shirt and bring it into the game for Zoi to wear, or put a poster from my real room into Zoi's house.
But of course this raises ethical questions. It's unclear whether the databases used for these tools are taken from plagiarism or are in-house databases created entirely from Crafton's work, but the company's blog posts and videos say that at least in the development process, it uses tools like Midjourney and Diffusion to create art. Either way, this significantly removes the need for studios to hire 3D modelers, essentially making those jobs unnecessary. Generative AI also has well-documented environmental costs that further blur the ethics of these tools.
Crafton isn't shying away from using generative AI
Crafton has been very open about being an AI advocate, with a whole section on its website dedicated to its Deep Learning division, where it is working on using generative AI to “make gaming more productive” by generating art, animation, and voice, translating research into real-world tools, creating “virtual friends” you can play games with and talk to, creating virtual influencers who can livestream their games, and more. And there's a lot more that's not even mentioned on the website.
They're also very open about their motivations. Throughout the studio's various blog posts and videos I've seen, representatives repeatedly state that generative AI is being used to create games at a lower cost with fewer people. Clearly, this means the company is using generative AI tools rather than hiring employees to do the work. This highlights a larger pattern within the company that likely runs deep at inZOI.
It's worth noting that Crafton has a history of eagerly jumping on trendy, shady new technologies. Its upcoming metaverse game, Overdare, uses “advanced AI generation tools,” integrates blockchain technology with NFTs, and employs a “create-to-earn” business model. Who's to say no one cares about NFTs anymore?
At the bottom of Crafton's AI-centric webpage, there is a subsection called “Ethical AI,” which says that Crafton's AI Ethics Committee serves to “foster ongoing discussion and debate on AI ethics issues” and includes “members from various teams, including legal, data, and privacy.” They also hold regular roundtables and “establish ethical guidelines and codes of conduct and monitor compliance.” Crafton's AI ethics page lists its principles as not violating fundamental human rights, respecting diversity, protecting personal information, and creating “trustworthy AI.”
As far as I can tell, there is only a vague mention of the ethical issue of “copyright”, and nowhere does Crafton say that AI is a tool to assist developers, rather than completely eliminate their work, which is probably because AI is doing the opposite, trying to reduce costs as much as possible.
This is the company that acquired Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks after it was shut down by Xbox, and the more I read about its efforts in generative AI, the more I worry about the extent to which they'll push those tools on the company they own. Allowing players to generate textures for their clothing is a relatively minor and mostly harmless quibble that actually benefits users… when it works well (I've seen reviews where it doesn't work as well as expected). But a single AI tool is a far cry from the amount of work Krafton is doing with generative AI, and we should all be wary of tacitly condoning by making this particular game our sim killer.
