'AI Assistant' Helping NC Game Development... Zombie Motions Done in a Snap

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] NCSoft's upcoming new title 'Pro Baseball H3,' set to launch in the second half of the year, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate almost all the text within the game. 'Pro Baseball H3' is a game where users become team owners and manage baseball teams, with game results delivered in the form of 'sports news.' Using NCSoft's proprietary NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology, AI creates sentences and writes news articles. Tasks that developers previously had to write manually are now handled by AI. Having researched AI since 2011, NCSoft has reached a stage where AI acts as an 'assistant' during the game development process.

Jang Jeong-seon, Head of NLP Center at NCSoft.

◆ AI Creates Not Only Text but Also Backgrounds and Movements = On the 3rd, Jang Jeong-seon, head of NCSoft's NLP Center, explained, "We have reached a level where AI can be utilized in various ways during game development." The NLP Center, which handles Natural Language Processing tasks, is the organization within NCSoft that researches and develops AI. Besides generating in-game text, there are many other uses for AI, and the team continuously hones AI technology. Until now, NCSoft has deployed over 200 personnel for 5 to 7 years to develop major games. However, with the full-scale application of AI, the time and manpower required for game development have been significantly reduced.

Consider the task of creating a single 'mountain' within a game. Jang said, "Art designers had to use their imagination as if 'heading into the unknown' to decide what shape and features the mountain should have." But now, if you instruct AI to 'draw a mountain,' it provides various mountain designs and examples as recommendations." Thanks to this, art designers can more easily create realistic mountains by modifying the shapes generated by AI.

AI also plays a key role in developing game character movements. Until now, motion capture was created by attaching sensors to people for each situation. But with AI, once motion capture data is created, inputting the necessary feature data generates the required movements. Jang explained, "AI can create movements for zombies that do not exist in reality. By inputting initial motion capture and training AI on various zombie characteristics, lifelike zombie movements are produced."

AI also assists with the 'numerical calculations' that game developers find most challenging. The fun of a game is maintained by combining various 'numbers,' such as character difficulty and matchups, which developers had to configure manually. Now, AI can write algorithms and, given the necessary data, produce any desired outcome. Jang said, "With AI integrated into game development, developers can focus more on enhancing the game's completeness."

◆ NCSoft Aiming to Become an 'AI Company' = NCSoft places its AI organization directly under CEO Kim Taek-jin, reflecting its high growth potential. Jang expressed confidence, saying, "AI is a field where a 'super gap' (an insurmountable difference) is possible." This is because once AI achieves a 'super gap' through data learning, it is difficult for latecomers to close the gap easily.

The AI business also has high growth potential. According to Korea IDC, the domestic AI market size is expected to grow from 300 billion KRW in 2019 at an average annual rate of 17.8%, surpassing 640 billion KRW by 2023. Jang said, "The ultimate goal of NCSoft's AI organization is to become an AI company," adding, "We will continue to experiment with which businesses to combine AI technology with to achieve the best synergy."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.