This market seeks to predict the ability to use AI to generate meaningful parts of an impressive game.
We are not concerned with precision down to the level of generating a good Settings menu, but trying to take a qualitative look at how relevant overall the AI is.
Individual examples that would cause this market to resolve YES:
- All (or the overwhelming majority) of assets are AI generated -> YES
- All game mechanics are AI generated -> YES
- All the story / dialogue elements are AI generated in a visual novel -> YES
At the end of 2024 if this market closes and no game has met the critera, this market will resolve NO.
FAQ:
What counts as a game?
I am fleshing out two main requirements:
1. It must be listed as a game for sale on Steam, Epic, game consoles, or equivalent online game storefronts.
2. There must be tangible game rules, with explicit victory and loss states.
(Open ended chat sandboxes are not the interesting question, as we basically already have those.)What if the assets are AI-generated but human-edited?
For the purposes of this market this will NOT count.
Related Markets:
If it happens it's gonna be an AI Dungeon-like RP game, AI dungeon itself probably had a revenue in the 100's K dollars and the company behind it raised 3.3M dollars https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/04/latitude-seed-funding/
96% of the games on Steam generate less than $1 million in sales: https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/11/29/median-indie-game-earnings-steam-barely-over-1000
So it cannot just be any random experimental indie game where the AI generation is the main draw; it has to actually be a good game that attracts a significant following. Apparently a third of the ~400 games on the Meta Quest store have earned over $1 million (https://uploadvr.com/1-in-3-meta-quest-store-apps-make-millions-in-revenue/), so perhaps the level of quality on the Quest store is a good benchmark for comparison: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/section/258035155854818/
Personally I am doubtful that a high-quality game could be developed, released, and hit $1M revenue on such a short timespan. (Less than two years from now -- we don't currently even have AI that can generate good 3D models!)
I would appreciate some examples of what would cause this market to resolve to "NO", as I could see some game incorporating AI in a fairly basic / limited but high-salience way (ie, the enemies in in a stealth game are RL-trained agents that realistically search for the player, a la "Hello Neighbor", or all the textures are AI generated but then they are applied to human-made game objects), gets a bunch of overhyped headlines as "the first AI-created game!!", but doesn't truly meet the criteria that this market seems to be laying out.
@comsynthus This is where my judgement comes into play. The more direct human involvement is needed the less impressive the result. I am willing to update towards something more concrete here.
Added the related 2026 market: https://manifold.markets/SneakySly/by-the-end-of-2026-will-there-be-a