Generative AI has gone mainstream in Japanese game development. In a preliminary summary published ahead of the full report due in December, Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association (CESA) found that 85.8 percent of Japanese game developers are actively using generative AI in their work — a dramatic rise from the 51 percent recorded in last year’s report.
The findings come from a survey of 1,349 developers conducted at CEDEC, the Japanese game developers conference.
How Developers Are Using It
Usage covers both the generation of in-game assets and the use of tools like ChatGPT and Copilot for more generic admin work, as Kotaku reports. Of those using the tools, 63 percent use the technology daily, while 22.8 percent use it only occasionally. A further 8.6 percent noted their companies have introduced guidance on how AI may be used.
Most respondents reported seeing a benefit. Many said it reduced production time and costs, 837 claimed it expanded creativity, and 738 said it lowered technical barriers. Only 147 of the developers surveyed, however, said the technology actually benefited the end-user experience.
The Caveats Behind the Number
There are limits to what the survey shows. It polls individual developers, so it can count numerous people from the same company with identical policies, without a breakdown of overall AI usage by company. In CESA’s separate survey of its member companies, 74 percent reported having policies on the use of generative AI — and companies were split almost evenly between those not using it (27) and those using it in some form (26). Only 12 companies used it for visual assets, with even fewer using it for story, localization, QA, or programming.
The Level-5 Backdrop
The numbers land amid intense scrutiny of AI in Japanese games. Last month, Level-5 president and CEO Akihiro Hino apologized after confirming that generative AI was used in the studio’s recent digital showcase, in featured reveals for Professor Layton and Yo-kai Watch titles, after viewers spotted what they believed were signs of AI-generated footage. Hino said the studio had used AI to make the presentation “more spectacular” as an experiment, apologized for making fans “uncomfortable,” and stressed that the “charm and individuality” of Level-5’s games come from “human hands” — with AI at the studio mostly about efficiency, such as converting artwork into polygons.
The direction of travel is hard to miss across the industry either way — Epic’s Tim Sweeney counts AI among the forces squeezing the entire games business. Support for these technologies is stronger in East Asian countries like South Korea and Japan, though global backlash — as seen with games like Crazy Taxi: World Tour — suggests gaming companies will have to be more thoughtful about AI implementation than industries chasing pure productivity gains.