Musk says he'll create an AI Game Studio

[OptionalRule]

Musk tweeted today that he's launching an AI GameDev studio for video games.

His tweet "Too many game studios that are owned by massive corporations. @xAI is going to start an AI game studio to make games great again! "

There's something deeply ironic about a tech billionaire declaring he'll "make games great again" by creating an AI game studio. It's not that I'm against innovation in game development - quite the opposite. But after decades in both tabletop and digital gaming spaces, I've watched this pattern repeat itself: someone with capital decides they can "fix" gaming while misidentifying the core problem. (I'm looking at you Curt Schilling)

The issue isn't corporate size - it's the fundamental structure of stockholder capitalism. Whether it's TSR's fall, White Wolf's transformation under CCP, or the countless digital studios that have been acquired and gutted, the pattern is clear. The need to feed stockholders through constant growth or satisfy private equity's demand for returns is what strangles creative studios.

What's particularly frustrating is how discussions around this get derailed into debates about DEI or corporate size. These are distractions from the real issue: the financial structures that prioritize quarterly growth (not profits. growth) over sustainable creative development. DEI fits into this because it's the bone they give for everyone to fight over while hiding the real issue. Look up ESG scores. ESG Scores aren't about diversity - they're about gaming a system of social capital to qualify for loans and encourage investments. So it's just another facent of the poison that is investor returns.

And now we're presented with AI as a solution, but to what problem exactly? The challenge facing game development isn't a lack of tools or technology - it's the need for frameworks that enable more creators with a singular vision, not fewer. It's about protecting the integrity of an artisitic vision, while creating toolsets that accelerate the realization of that vision. We need systems that support sustainable, creative game development without the pressure of infinite growth. Just putting an AI in the mix will do nothing but cut more people out and focus the game development cycle even more on growth. I don't think this is going to fix anything.

People are going to get distracted because just mentioning Elon causes people to go into fits. Elon is a problem, but he isn't THE problem. He could launch himself to Mars tomorrow and we would still have this problem. Dorsey and Zuckerberg represent the same mindset. It's about recognizing that the future of gaming lies not in replacing creators with AI, but in building financial and creative frameworks that actually support them. I think AI can be a tool to do that, but we have to focus on applying it that way. Otherwise, it'll just be the same old of cutting people out.

 

[FrogReaver]

To be fair, if costs come down on creating games, then suddenly there’s profitability in creating more niche and singular creative vision games.

Other than that, I’m going to avoid all the anti-capitalist underpinnings in the post.

 

[Ryujin]

"Too many game studios that are owned by massive corporations." So he's going to create another massive corporation? How does that help? He doesn't have stockholders?

 

[FrogReaver]

"Too many game studios that are owned by massive corporations." So he's going to create another massive corporation? How does that help? He doesn't have stockholders?

xAI is a privately held company. Not a corporation.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To be fair, if costs come down on creating games, then suddenly there’s profitability in creating more niche and singular creative vision games.

They're already incredibly profitable, what on earth are you talking about?

Indie games make boatloads of cash. They're priced at typically 1/4 to 1/3rd as much as AAAs, but they're usually made by single individuals or small teams on very small budgets. Some sell millions of copies. Many sell tens of thousand to hundreds of thousands.

You don't need AI to do that - and it's not even going to save you a meaningful amount of money. Nor is it going to make your game more successful - it's easy to see on Steam that games which use AI art tend to fail hard, even in the porn-game sphere, which has very low standards and accepts hideous CGI. AI is already used to assist coding and isn't a major concern but also Musk can offer nothing new there, nor can it turn a non-programmer into a programmer, nor even assist a programmer in all situations. And you'd be using something trained on all of GitHub, which unless Grok is, as rumoured but explicitly denied by a Musk, a fork of ChatGPT, not going to be anything Musk owns.

This is just Musk spewing feces as usual and some people desperately, hopefully/hopelessly searching for silver pennies in said feces, sure that there must be some.

If Musk actually wanted to make great games, he could - by financing them, whether or large or small. A huge AAA game costs like $100m. Musk could finance ten BG3s for a billion, and he's got 200+ of those. For what he paid for Twitter, which is now trash and dropping in value fast, $44bn, he could have 440 BG3s, or 440 possible BG3s.

Hell, he could fund a hundred times that many indie games, easily, more even. This is just a crappy attempt to try and find a use for his failing AI tool.

 

[FrogReaver]

They're already incredibly profitable, what on earth are you talking about?

Indie games make boatloads of cash. They're priced at typically 1/4 to 1/3rd as much as AAAs, but they're usually made by single individuals or small teams on very small budgets. Some sell millions of copies. Many sell tens of thousand to hundreds of thousands.

You don't need AI to do that - and it's not even going to save you a meaningful amount of money. Nor is it going to make your game more successful - it's easy to see on Steam that games which use AI art tend to fail hard, even in the porn-game sphere, which has very low standards and accepts hideous CGI. AI is already used to assist coding and isn't a major concern but also Musk can offer nothing new there, nor can it turn a non-programmer into a programmer, nor even assist a programmer in all situations. And you'd be using something trained on all of GitHub, which unless Grok is, as rumoured but explicitly denied by a Musk, a fork of ChatGPT, not going to be anything Musk owns.

This is just Musk spewing feces as usual and some people desperately, hopefully/hopelessly searching for silver pennies in said feces, sure that there must be some.

If Musk actually wanted to make great games, he could - by financing them, whether or large or small. A huge AAA game costs like $100m. Musk could finance ten BG3s for a billion, and he's got 200+ of those. For what he paid for Twitter, which is now trash and dropping in value fast, $44bn, he could have 440 BG3s, or 440 possible BG3s.

Hell, he could fund a hundred times that many indie games, easily, more even. This is just a crappy attempt to try and find a use for his failing AI tool.

Do you know the failure rate for games?

 

[Ryujin]

xAI is a privately held company. Not a corporation.

So far.

 

[delericho]

Musk tweeted today that he's launching an AI GameDev studio for video games.

Of course he is.

 

[Deset Gled]

To be fair, if costs come down on creating games, then suddenly there’s profitability in creating more niche and singular creative vision games.

This has proven historically untrue in many markets. When the cost to entry lowers, what actually happens is centralization. A few (or one) large players become the kingpins, maximizing profits on high quantity and economy of scale. Meanwhile, a multitude of tiny independents are left scraping up the leftovers but never getting any real traction (unless they get bought and absorbed by one of the big guys).

This is what has happened to video games over the years; mid-tier releases are fewer and far between as AAA budgets skyrocket and indie developers struggle for tiny pieces of the pie. This is what the internet did to the music industry; big stars are bigger, and no one can make a living selling albums anymore.

Of course, the RPG market is already highly centralized. But lowering cost of production will not be the factor that will change that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Do you know the failure rate for games?

Define "failure rate" in the context of games. We can probably work it out from Steam.