Prepare for AI to ‘completely disrupt everything’
Min-Liang Tan speaks at a conference at SXSW Sydney on October 16, 2024 in Sydney, Australia.
Nina Franova | Getty Images
According to Min-Liang Tan, billionaire CEO and co-founder of gaming company Razer, artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on the gaming industry and its billions of players.
From the ways games are developed to the tricks used to complete levels, Tan said the implications of technology across the industry should not be exaggerated.
“We at Razer see AI as going to completely disrupt or change everything in the gaming world,” Tan told CNBC’s “Beyond the Valley” podcast.
Gaming plays an important role in the creative industry, with 3.6 billion players worldwide and annual revenue of approximately $189 billion. According to research company Newzoowhich tracks data from mobile, console and PC games.
“Game developers will now be able to use AI tools, and now there will be game publishers who will distribute and market new games with AI tools… For gamers, AI tools will be able to change things in terms of the way they play,” Tan told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at the SWITCH conference in Singapore.
Razer, known for gaming equipment like mice, headsets, and keyboards, has developed Game Co-AI, a tool that uses computer vision to “watch” how a player plays and provide tips on solving missions or defeating enemies. The tool will also use data such as public APIs, and a beta version of Game Co-AI will be available “in late 2025,” according to Razer. website.
However, the potential use of artificial intelligence in e-sports or competitive gaming has sparked controversy.
“I guess we won’t run the AI during the game, but what about during practice?” Tan said. Tan said there is a desire among some e-sports players to use artificial intelligence to coach future stars. “There’s a lot of excitement about this. The opportunities are endless.”
According to Tan, in addition to helping players, artificial intelligence will also be able to detect and fix errors when games are developed.
Traditionally, game testing involves “a group of people sitting in a room,” playing games and identifying bugs one by one, Tan said, in a process known as quality assurance, or QA. Razer is developing an AI QA Companion that can find and log bugs, and will soon be able to suggest bug fixes as well.
“[QA] is about 20% to 30%. [development] “In terms of costs, it takes about 30% of the time,” Tan said, adding that the new tool will make human testers more effective and productive by automating the QA process.
Games created by artificial intelligence?
Strauss Zelnick, CEO of video game publisher Take-Two Interactive, which made Grand Theft Auto, said Tuesday that artificial intelligence cannot compete with human game developers.
But when asked about one-year game predictions, Tan said: “I think we’ll talk about some new, exciting games created with AI and how we see the future from that. Maybe we’ll see one or two big hit games.”
Developing a game usually requires large teams and significant investments, but according to Tan, AI will allow smaller groups of people to do it. He added that rather than being a threat to jobs, AI could eliminate “boring” tasks. “Human creativity still needs to be there.”
Tan noted that the way the gaming industry uses AI could have a broader impact beyond the industry, suggesting that “multiple new industries could emerge.”
“A lot of what’s happening in the tech industry has emerged from games, and I believe a lot of what’s going to happen for AI will also emerge from AI games,” he said.
Razer was founded by Tan and Robert Krakoff in 2005, and the company became known for the Boomslang, a mouse named after a deadly snake designed specifically for gaming. “For a gamer, the mouse is everything. It is an extension of your arm,” Tan said. “The more precise your mouse, the more likely you are to get parts,” he said, referring to “kills” in first-person shooter games.
Tan, which is based in Singapore and Irvine, California, said the company went global “very quickly” after its launch. Razer went public and was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2017, then went public again in 2022.
