This article is a part of AI Week.
For about a year now, the entire content material for the mobile game Dawn Village has been generated by AI. However removed from producing a backlash from gamers, it appears that evidently no one has realised that something has modified.
“Participant numbers and engagement have remained steady,” says Thomas Lehr, director of engineering on the game’s developer, InnoGames. “The outcomes communicate for themselves: zero neighborhood complaints about AI or perceived high quality variations. It appears gamers merely have not noticed any change.”
However now that the AI cat is out of the bag, is InnoGames braced for a revolt? Will gamers view the game much less favourably than earlier than? “Truthfully, some gamers may need combined emotions about it – that is comprehensible,” muses Lehr. “However what gamers actually care about is a good expertise: enjoyable gameplay, participating tales, polished content material. Our playtesting makes certain we ship that.”
“The choice was shutting down the game. Provided that alternative, I feel most gamers would reasonably maintain taking part in – and a year of steady engagement exhibits the content material works.”
The tough financial world of mobile free-to-play titles – which require fixed content material technology and huge advertising and marketing spend – implies that sometimes, solely the most important hits survive. Supercell’s Squadbusters is a good instance: even with round 58.7 million downloads and roughly $66.2 million in income to this point (in keeping with AppMagic figures), it was nonetheless deemed sufficient of a failure for improvement to be halted simply 18 months after launch.
Dawn Village, a cosy farming game first launched in 2021, hasn’t precisely been a full miss for InnoGames: in 2025, it introduced in whole income of between round $160,000 and $190,000 a month, based mostly on AppMagic estimates. That may sound like a lot, however keep in mind that that is earlier than issues just like the 30% retailer minimize, taxes, and advertising and marketing prices are deducted, not to mention the salaries of the game’s builders. Moreover, the game’s month-to-month energetic consumer depend peaked a couple of years in the past, and its income has roughly halved since then.
In brief, says Lehr, Dawn Village was “underperforming financially,” and had reached a level the place InnoGames could not justify protecting a crew of roughly 25 folks engaged on it full time. “Historically, the reply could be to close down unprofitable video games,” he says, “however that is turning into more and more unpopular with gamers, because the Cease Killing Video games initiative exhibits.”
AI supplied an alternate. By producing content material using AI, the Dawn Village crew has gone from 25 to between two and 4 folks, with the earlier builders being moved onto a new venture. “With out AI, the game would have been cancelled,” says Lehr. “With AI, we are able to maintain it operating profitably with a minimal crew whereas sustaining the prime quality of content material that gamers anticipate.”
“That mentioned, we nonetheless assume the human contact issues additionally for a game with heavy AI involvement like on this case. We do not simply take regardless of the AI produces – we information it, refine it, and personal the ultimate outcome. AI does the heavy lifting, people nonetheless form what gamers really expertise.”
A fast revolution
Lehr joined InnoGames round 10 years in the past, rising from technical venture result in director of engineering. He says he first obtained considering AI by way of ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot round two and a half to a few years in the past, which he discovered “genuinely mind-blowing.”
“As an engineer, I did not anticipate that one thing as complicated as coding could possibly be ‘auto-completed’ so successfully. That was the second I realised this expertise could be disruptive.”
Since then, he is been driving AI initiatives throughout InnoGames. “We’ve got central groups for artwork and engineering that function AI assist, however we additionally encourage particular person analysis from workers,” he says. “It’s totally a lot a company-wide effort.”
The developments he is seen in AI coding over the previous couple of years have been astonishingly fast. “We have gone from fundamental autocomplete to what I name ‘agentic coding’: writing detailed specs in pure language, then having AI translate that into executable code and checks. This is completely different from the deceptive ‘vibe coding’ – a time period that is turn into in style for describing approaches the place you settle for AI output with out totally understanding or controlling it. Quick outcomes, however reasonably random and usually unmaintainable.”
Lehr says that on smaller initiatives, coding brokers now outperform people in each velocity and high quality. “Instruments that used to take days and even weeks are now performed in hours.” People stay a essential a part of the equation although, as somebody nonetheless must evaluation the code, steer the AI, and make certain the output matches the expectations.
Upfront funding
Getting the AI performance up and operating wasn’t a trivial course of. “The preliminary improvement took about two months of devoted engineering effort,” says Lehr, which concerned one or two engineers. A key perception was that they had been ready to make use of AI to really create the content-creation instruments, which might then use AI to generate content material.
The largest challenges now are the massive, legacy codebases, says Lehr, which have to be made express and retrievable by the AI. “This just isn’t a solved drawback – it requires important effort and experimental approaches to make codebases ‘AI-friendly’. That is our present objective: workflows that allow brokers take a job from the digital board, plan it, and ship an implementation for the engineer to evaluation. The evaluation itself can be AI-assisted.”
Content material for Dawn Village is now created using what InnoGames calls the “AI Stage Designer” – a customized toolset built-in into Unity that makes use of LLMs to deal with story and degree creation. It includes six manufacturing steps:
- Story and quests. Pure language narratives are transformed into a storyline and structured quest knowledge, with auto-generated triggers and validation.
- Clever balancing. Using a data base of roughly 100 game gadgets throughout a number of tiers, the software mechanically calculates building necessities, XP rewards, and issue scaling.
- Asset discovery. The system visually analyses each asset and auto-generates searchable labels.
- Format and placement. Degree buildings, development paths, and unlockable areas are generated.
- Object spawning. Collectibles, treasures, and obstacles are positioned across the ranges.
- Cutscenes. Cutscenes are generated that combine with the story.
Lehr says the method is overseen by people all through, and each degree will get full playtesting earlier than launch, with closing tweaking performed by people to present the content material a person contact.
The AI course of is predicated round OpenAI’s GPT-4o mannequin, which Lehr notes is “already fairly an outdated mannequin by at present’s requirements, however it was a breakthrough in intelligence after we applied the toolset. Newer fashions have improved considerably, however we have discovered that stability and predictability matter greater than being cutting-edge – every mannequin change requires intensive testing, as completely different variations can behave fairly otherwise.”
“Throughout InnoGames extra broadly, we offer entry to the frontier fashions from Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI for all workers, and use completely different fashions relying on the duty. Anthropic Claude is especially robust for engineering duties. Google Gemini is at the moment main for visible content material evaluation. It is project-dependent, based mostly on which mannequin performs greatest for particular use circumstances.”
“We additionally use varied picture and video creation instruments, and AI performs a important function in our localization workflows as nicely.”
InnoGames has discovered that one of probably the most environment friendly makes use of for AI is mechanically labelling the numerous hundreds of property that get created for each game. “Dawn Village has roughly 10,000 visible property, and discovering the fitting one for a explicit scene was extremely time-consuming,” says Lehr.
“Our AI labelling software visually analyses each game asset and auto-generates searchable labels. What used to take hours of guide shopping now takes seconds. You possibly can search for ‘cosy fire’ or ‘autumn tree’ and instantly discover related property.”
InnoGames is not the one video games firm to have found the facility of AI for asset retrieval. Throughout the Machine Studying Summit at GDC 2025, Lóránt Mikolás from Name of Obligation developer Infinity Ward gave a talk about how the studio makes use of an AI-based multimodal search engine to seek out and retrieve 3D fashions, photogrammetry property, animations, and extra.
Lehr says InnoGames is at the moment within the technique of rolling out the AI labelling software to different video games. “Apart from story and quest creation, it is been one of probably the most instantly impactful functions of AI in our Dawn Village workflow.”
Changed by AI
One of many greatest worries in regards to the introduction of AI is that it’s going to exchange jobs. However Lehr insists that at InnoGames, the goal is to extend productiveness reasonably than chopping roles.
“We’re anticipating important productiveness positive factors that can allow us to pursue extra initiatives concurrently and ship extra of our roadmaps – and thus extra worth for gamers,” he says. “Progress-oriented, not cost-cutting.”
“The employees members who transitioned from Dawn Village to our new venture Cozy Coast had been really glad about it. They obtained to cease doing routine content material creation duties and give attention to artistic work for a new title. That final result aligns completely with our general AI technique.”
However are these artists and designers who had been taken off Dawn Village actually glad about it?
Lémuel Wuibout is a senior lead artist at InnoGames, and he led a crew of round seven artists on Dawn Village earlier than being moved throughout to the brand new merge-two game Cozy Coast. He is an trade veteran, with a profession in video games going again greater than 30 years, together with a stint at Crytek.
“All of the artwork crew was fairly enthusiastic about transferring from Dawn Village to this new venture,” confirms Wuibout. “Many of the artists had been engaged on Dawn Village for perhaps greater than 5 years, a few of us even seven years. So it is all the time a bit refreshing once you transfer to a new venture and you must do every part from scratch, like outline the artwork model and get the brand new characters.”
However how does he really feel about the truth that the game he labored on for so lengthy is now being created by AI? “I’ll say that I am fairly glad about it. And I even have fairly some admiration for the builders, all of the instruments that they created, and every part that they did to make it work. And it appears to be a pure circulate or a transition, I’ll say, as a result of on Dawn Village, we had been already having the issue of how will we create extra content material quicker for the gamers.”
“It is reputable to be a bit scared by how issues are transferring ahead, as a result of there’s nonetheless a lot of unknowns”
Lémuel Wuibout
Wuibout had already been using procedural technology to create issues like textures and terrain, so for him, using generative AI to do one thing related felt like “the following step.”
That mentioned, he’s involved in regards to the future. “On the present state, the best way we use AI, I am not feeling threatened or scared by it, however you by no means know what is going on to occur in two, 5, or 10 years. So in fact, it is reputable to be a bit scared by how issues are transferring ahead, as a result of there’s nonetheless a lot of unknowns and issues that we haven’t any management over.”
Wuibout stresses that InnoGames has been upfront about its use of AI to allow extra initiatives and create content material extra effectively, with out lowering headcount. “And up to now, I feel that is really enhancing the entire artists. The way in which we use AI is extra like [as] a idea artist: reasonably than ranging from a clean web page, you can begin with a couple of pictures generated by AI. Possibly you’ll photobash them till you get a base of the canvas that you would be able to work on, and then be extra environment friendly as a result of you do not have to attract every part. You possibly can simply polish, and retake, and regulate every part so that you’ve a good picture ultimately.”
However is that basically a extra environment friendly course of than simply drawing a picture from scratch precisely as supposed? Wuibout says that firstly, the introduction of AI did not make the method any faster. “However AI is making a lot progress so quick that the extra it goes, the extra it is really time saving.”
It took a whereas to get right here, although. “Initially, you must study, you must perceive the various kinds of fashions, what you are able to do, what you can not. There was additionally the right way to immediate appropriately, what to immediate. So there was a studying part that was clearly not bettering your effectivity that a lot, however then we began using Situation AI, the place we are able to prepare our personal fashions: so we are able to use our inside library of property, prepare the mannequin with it, and then you definitely get good outcomes.”
Adapting to a fully completely different approach of working did not come simply at first. “It was a bit tough prompting and discovering the fitting phrases,” remembers Wuibout. “And generally it could possibly be a bit irritating… Particularly as artists, when now we have one thing in thoughts and we wish to categorical it, we’re expressing it by drawing immediately, making a sketch and not likely prompting using phrases.”
All in all, nonetheless, Wuibout says it is been “fascinating” to study a “new talent” together with others at InnoGames. “It is one thing that we’re sharing within the firm: once you discuss to different artists, [you say], ‘How did you handle to get to that outcome?'”
Curiously, regardless of AI now getting used at InnoGames to generate preliminary pictures, idea artists are nonetheless getting used there. Wuibout says the idea artist for Dawn Village moved onto a new venture, “and I can say that even on Cozy Coast, I additionally employed a freelancer as a idea artist to assist us.”
“It positively made us extra environment friendly”
Lémuel Wuibout
So what precisely is the function of a idea artist in an AI-dominated pipeline? “As an example that it is a bit extra specialised to a sure diploma,” says Wuibout.
“The function of idea artist barely modified. It developed a bit into having a eager eye on the outcome, with the ability to perceive what’s flawed, what must be fastened, and additionally take a look at the main points. There’s all the time issues that you must repair with AI. Some shadows might be flawed, some lighting might be flawed, some components, some proportions might be flawed. So you must have an eye fixed on this to attempt to perceive what must be fastened.”
Wuibout emphasises that artists are wanted to tweak AI-generated pictures earlier than they’re used within the precise game, notably for issues like consistency with the artwork model – though he says the issue of inconsistency has lessened significantly since they began using Situation and coaching the AI on InnoGames’ personal pictures. He is seen the expertise progress enormously inside a quick area of time. “Just lately, I’ll say that Gemini with Nano Banana is kind of insane at understanding the model and offering one thing in a related model.”
Crucially, he says the brand new workflow has dramatically sped issues up. “It positively made us extra environment friendly,” he says. “And once I see how briskly we had been in a position to transfer on Cozy Coast in comparison with the time it took us on Dawn Village to get to the identical level, it clearly allowed us to do extra.”
Pushback
Though Wuibout is sanguine and even optimistic about switching over to an AI-first workflow, it is a protected wager that many, if not most, artists within the video games trade will probably be far much less agreeable to the prospect. In truth, in a current GamesIndustry.biz survey of individuals working within the trade, 84.2% of respondents mentioned that they thought no quantity of AI-generated content material was acceptable at any level the the event of a game, with solely 3.2% agreeing that AI-generated artwork ought to be used for the minority of completed content material, and simply 0.9% agreeing that it ought to be used for nearly all of content material.
Lehr admits that InnoGames has skilled pushback towards AI from its workers. “I feel that is pure and wholesome,” he says. “Some crew members had issues about job safety – that is a reputable fear once you see headlines about AI changing staff. Others anxious about shedding their abilities over time, turning into ‘immediate operators’ reasonably than craftspeople who really perceive their area.”
“We addressed these by way of open communication. On job safety, we had been clear from the beginning: our technique is to make use of productiveness positive factors to tackle extra initiatives and create extra worth, to not scale back headcount.”
“On talent improvement, we have discovered AI can really be a highly effective studying accelerator. It is a affected person and educated peer that explains ideas from completely different views, helps you discover adjoining abilities, and helps you to deal with challenges barely past your present degree. Used deliberately, it broadens experience reasonably than changing it.”
The long run
There’s a danger, in fact, in constructing your improvement pipeline on expertise owned by another person. It is well-known that lots of the huge AI corporations are currently unprofitable – so what occurs if a firm like OpenAI dramatically will increase its costs a few years down the road, as soon as companies have come to depend on its providers?
“It is a legitimate concern,” says Lehr. “Vendor dependency is a actual danger. However we do not see dramatic value will increase within the foreseeable future, and we imagine the danger is manageable.”
Lehr thinks that robust competitors between suppliers will maintain costs in verify, and factors to the roughly tenfold discount in prices over the previous two years as a results of algorithmic, {hardware}, and effectivity positive factors. He provides that open-source alternate options additionally are likely to observe simply 6–12 months behind frontier fashions, and notes that InnoGames takes a model-agnostic method, so it is not “locked-in” to using a explicit AI mannequin. “If any supplier dramatically will increase costs, alternate options are across the nook,” he says.
Proper now, the plan at InnoGames is to double down on AI. “Constructing on the Dawn Village success, we’re increasing AI content material technology throughout InnoGames,” says Lehr. “We’re already rolling out instruments like our asset labelling system to different titles, and making use of our learnings to video games which can be nonetheless actively rising – not simply end-of-life titles.”
He says that InnoGames sees AI as a “productiveness multiplier,” permitting game designers to generate extra concepts, iterate quicker, and validate ideas extra shortly. He factors to artists using AI to discover ideas extra shortly, create temper boards, generate variations, and create tough drafts to refine, in addition to engineers constructing higher tooling for content material creators.
“This is not simply for struggling video games,” he says, “it is about enabling higher outcomes: greater characteristic units, extra content material, quicker iteration cycles, and finally extra worth for gamers.”
“Those that do not undertake will discover themselves at a extreme aggressive drawback”
Thomas Lehr
Provided that, he thinks AI content material technology will turn into widespread throughout the mobile sector. “The productiveness positive factors are too important to disregard,” Lehr concludes. “Firms that work out the right way to successfully combine AI into their workflows will be capable to do extra with the identical assets – and seemingly in higher high quality, since people can give attention to artistic and high-value work, whereas AI handles the repetitive duties constantly. Extra video games, extra content material, longer lifespans for beloved titles. Those that do not undertake will discover themselves at a extreme aggressive drawback.”
It is tough to get a deal with on precisely how widespread AI-first workflows are in mobile proper now. Given the big public backlash that video games corporations have confronted over AI use, only a few are prepared to discuss it publicly. Mario Wynands, CEO of the New Zealand-based mobile and PC developer PikPok, says that it is “onerous to inform” how widespread AI adoption is on condition that he would not have direct perception into different corporations’ workflows.
“Nonetheless, it is rather clearly having a rising presence, no less than on the UA [user acquisition] aspect of the mobile enterprise, with the growing apparent utilization of generative AI UA artistic,” he says. “Localization, asset creation, UA marketing campaign administration, market and metrics evaluation, and game prototyping in hyper informal are different ‘excessive quantity’ elements of profitable mobile video games at scale the place I anticipate market leaders and AI-centric startups to be investigating or adopting AI aggressively.”
In the end, the buyer will determine whether or not AI-generated content material is appropriate. We have already seen huge pushback towards the expertise within the PC and console area, however up to now there has been comparatively little outrage about AI amongst mobile game gamers – one other reminder that the mobile trade is sort of a completely separate world from the PC and console area. It stays to be seen, nonetheless, what degree of AI-generated content material mobile customers are prepared to simply accept, in addition to what artists and designers within the mobile trade will tolerate.
For Lehr although, the transition to an AI-first workflow appears inevitable. “Inside the subsequent two years, I anticipate AI-assisted content material technology to be normal observe throughout the trade – no less than in mobile video games. The instruments will solely get higher and extra accessible.”