With many companies in the gaming industry having discussed AI usage and the proliferation of the technology in general, The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED has become the latest to join the conversation. In the Q&A section of a recent earnings report, CD Projekt co-CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked about the studio’s hiring practices, especially in light of the availability of IT professionals as well as the use of AI. He responded by talking about the general state of the gaming industry, as well as the role AI plays in game development.
As part of his response, Nowakowski noted that the general availability of IT talent couldn’t really be attributed directly to the use and proliferation of AI. Rather, it comes down to the “turmoil” that other studios have been going through in recent times thanks to various projects getting canceled.
“We are not really hiring ‘classic’ IT – but I understand this is supposed to be about gaming industry talent – the availability of talent has perhaps increased a bit over the past three years, but I’m not sure I’d actually ascribe it to AI, to be perfectly honest – some studios have been going through turmoil; there were some project closures and so on, which led to many redundancies in the gaming industry; we’ve all seen that – it’s been very dramatic in many cases – but – literally kill me here, but I don’t recall a single time when it would be attributable directly to AI,” he explained.
As for the use of AI, he also mentioned that the technology was being used mostly in “productivity areas.” While he didn’t really expand on what this meant, he also noted that the studio wasn’t looking into reducing its headcount thanks to the power of generative AI tools. Rather, he said that AI can’t really replace employees to the point where it can “sit down and make games”.
“At least I don’t know about that. And as for reducing headcount thanks to AI – I don’t imagine that. Our usage of AI is mainly in the productivity areas, and that’s where we see the largest benefits of that. The benefits are real, they’re meaningful, but it’s not a situation – and I’m unaware of such a situation – where AI could ‘sit down and make games,’ he said. “That’s our take. It doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be useful, but it’s not gonna be making The Witcher 5, or 6, or anything like that.”
The use of AI-based tools was recently discussed at length by Larian Studios founder and Divinity director Swen Vincke. Just last week, he had taken to social media to discuss how irresponsible it would have been for the studio if it hadn’t evaluated the new technology and how it could be used in game development. This statement came just days after Vincke came under fire for having spoken about making use of generative AI to help Larian Studios create concept art for the game.
Similarly, Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios co-founder and series director Daniel Vávra had also spoken about the use of generative AI.
