It's always interesting when game AI gets commented on by non-game AI folks... especially the academics. On a relatively new blog/site, ThinkArtificial, the author commented on how games are, in general, "horribly void of intelligence." I suppose that's often the case - particularly in the 2nd tier of the market. However, I wonder if he went over the top a bit. (Note that my friend and colleague, Paul Tozour, jumped right in the next day with the first comment.) Anyway, here's his opening paragraphs.

A subscriber of Think Artificial wrote to ask me about games and AI. In short, DF asked what my thougths are on AI in games and which ones I think are the most intelligent.

To answer this bluntly: Game AI is very different from it's non-game counterpart, and it's not my field of study. I've only compared modern games through a window. However, Alex of AIGameDev has superb coverage of AI in games and the top AI games of 2007, by community vote. The top of the line are Half-Life-2.ep.2 and BioShock.

But regarding Game AI in general: modern games are horribly void of intelligence. It depends on where you set the bar, certainly. There's tons of AI in modern games compared to 5 years ago. But the first thing to note is that Game AI is not the same as AI. It's a subset of it. Just like discrete mathematics are a subset of mathematics. And moreover, Game AI is a very specialized subset—it has well defined goals, models for construction and limitations.

Thankfully, he did acknowledge in the article that game AI is somewhat hampered by the budget and the needs to make for fun gameplay rather than excellence.

Anyway, at least it wasn't derisive like we sometimes get from academia.

Labels: academic, ThinkArtificial