- AI use in games can lead to a 40-60% drop in sales for established developers.
- Titles that disclose AI use received 53% fewer reviews than non-AI games under similar conditions.
- The research shows AI stigma is real and hits large-scale, established studios the hardest.
AI use in gaming has grown over the years, with generative AI now often being used to create assets, streamline development, or even cut corners that harm developers in one way or another. Therefore, there’s been a lot of controversy around the technology.
A study shows that disclosing AI use on Steam slashes a game’s reviews by anywhere around 53%, which translates to a concerning 40-60% sales drop for established studios. Without AI, these games would have enjoyed a 20% to 60% sales boost instead via marketing.
Why it matters: Research shows that embracing AI use in games becomes a liability for established studios, even as the industry moves to accept it. In other words, games relying on AI would have performed much better without it.
Game Oracle’s research analyzed nearly 10K Steam releases that launched last year before November and found that 21% disclosed AI use. Since Steam doesn’t publicly disclose sales numbers, the study approximated Steam sales using the number of reviews each game received, an established proxy method used by the industry.
if “good” studios are using AI — then AI use is catastrophic (-40% to -60% drop in sales). This is evidenced by the dark blue cells at the top of our heatmap.
-Game Oracle.
Nearly 20% of titles using AI didn’t receive any reviews as opposed to 15% for non-AI ones. Similarly, another set of titles that used AI only averaged around 4 reviews in their first month after launch, compared to 7 reviews for those developed without it.
For titles that received at least 100 reviews, those without AI hit higher average scores (88.3%) than games that used the technology (84.6%).
Under similar conditions, such as studios’ prior experiences, publisher backing, genre, and release dates, games that used AI received 53% fewer reviews than titles developed without it. So, a game with 100 reviews would have seen 47 only if it used AI.
The study also found that inexperienced developers are less likely to suffer setbacks with AI use since their projects would struggle without it anyway. So, large AAA studios that experiment with AI in game development experience the biggest AI stigma in the industry.
Is using Gen AI for game development justified and ethical for large AAA studios? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion on the Tech4Gamers forum.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devoutly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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