✨ Massive updates

Gm, welcome to the lobby.


Important developments & updates for AI in gaming. A battle over IP rages in UEFN. Marvel announces 6v6 shooter and Discord finds a perfect match?

Grab your coffee, ready up, and let’s drop in 🪂
Here’s what we have for you today:

  • Building on Snap success, Marvel announces 6v6 shooter ‘Rivals’ 🦸‍♂️ 

  • AI in gaming: Important developments and updates ✨

  • A battle over IP in World Building: UEFN, game modes, & The Pit 🕳️

  • Discord matches with perfect partner for Discord Shop🏆  

Before we jump in, here’s a few interesting links:

Marvel announces 6v6 shooter ‘Rivals’ 🦸‍♂️

source: Marvel

In a very interesting move, Marvel and NetEase have announced a new collaboration called Marvel Rivals. The PvP (player versus player) title will allow fans to assemble an “ever-evolving all-star squad of Super Heroes and Super Villains, while battling with unique super powers across a dynamic lineup of destructible maps from across the Marvel Multiverse.” Honestly, there is a ton of potential with this title due solely on the IP though I think there might be one crack in this project. Follow me here…

Marvel Snap, the action TCG title released in October of 2022 that has climbed to nearly 1.5MM players, is a very, very different kind of game. When you reference that particular genre, Hearthstone is the primary name that bubbles to the top of the pile. However, through a mix of enjoyable gameplay and unique mechanics, as well as the ability to pick up and play the title for brief moments during the day, Snap has found itself up on the same podium. The team behind Snap continues to keep the content fresh and the dynamics optimized, resulting in high retention and a growing playerbase.


👀 Our POV

The FPS fandom arena is a whole different ball game. The fact that the very first trailer was met with “copycat” commentary is rough. Check out the announcement trailer here and tell us if it feels familiar to you starting at about the :23s mark. Maybe it’s just us. It’s probably not. 

Where IP depth has proven to be a successful component of Snap, I’m not quite sure that will translate as well to a shooter. It’s really, really hard to create a unique shooter these days but it has been done. (In my opinion, twice over the last year with Helldivers 2 and The Finals… but I digress.) 

The elements of the game that need to pop in order for the fun factor to drive increased interest and organic growth as players get their hands on it in May, and streamers begin to share the experience with the world, are these two specific differentiators:

  • Team-Up Skills! Unleash the synergy of combined superpowers and invent new tactics that can turn the tide of combat. Ride on Groot’s back as Rocket Raccoon to take on your enemies as a dangerous duo, unleash Gamma energy as Hulk to charge Iron Man’s armor for massive damage, and so much more!

  • Creative Environment Destruction! Use superpowers to alter these environments, reshape the terrain, and craft a strategic advantage on the battlefield! Take cover to dodge attacks or use makeshift weapons to strike down enemies. Players will find countless ways to utilize the environment to claim victory!

With Disney’s hard lean into gaming, I want this to succeed. I think the influx in capital and interest from a behemoth of that degree is a great thing. However, with the information we’ve been given so far? This could have been a badass piece of DLC for Overwatch. ducks

- Brandon Painter (Private Lobby)

✨ AI in gaming: Important developments and updates

AI in gaming is one of the biggest stories and most important developments in the industry right now. From AI generated art and character models, to AI voice actors, coding, play testing, the possibilities of AI are seemingly endless.

This year’s GDC had some incredible demos for AI-backed technologies that give us a glimpse into the future of gaming. Let’s quickly review the highlights so you’re all caught up on what’s coming down the line and exists today.

King’s AI-backed level development:

King has been using AI to help automate the process of creating levels for Candy Crush Saga. Researchers at King's AI Labs, led by Director Sahar Asadi, have developed AI tools to test levels and provide feedback to designers. The goal is to help maintain high quality across the thousands of levels in Candy Crush Saga as it continues to expand. AI agents can play through levels like human players to evaluate difficulty and enjoyment. This iterative development process with AI assistance has helped Candy Crush Saga produce over 15,000 levels so far.

Inworld AI’s Big Moment

A company named Inworld AI made a splash with numerous partnerships at GDC, including NIVIDA, Ubisoft, and Xbox. Let’s briefly review how they’re supporting the next generation of gaming with the industry’s biggest players.

  1. NVIDA’s Covert Protocol: In this new demo, players step into the shoes of a private detective who takes on various to-do’s through AI-driven NPC interactions. Thanks to generative AI, this allows players to go beyond the rigid NPC interactions we’re used to. For example, you could press a “Nexalife” exec for information. However, if they refuse to share, you don’t simply get to try another conversation tree. They’ll remember your previous conversation and respond accordingly.

  2. Ubisoft’s NEO NPCs: Ubisoft showed off what they called “conversational gameplay,” where players were guided through specific objectives in order to build trust with an NPC and then plan a heist. The first NPC had richer dialogue that wasn’t limited by pre-set options but rather answered questions spoken by the player into the microphone. This sets the stage for far more engaging NPC interactions that could significantly contribute to increased immersion. For the heist section, a reporter from Mercury News had an active discussion about different tactics, inquired about background info on guards, and even cracked a joke saying that they’d “curl up in a ball and cry” if guards found them and the NPC understood/responded to the sarcasm.

  3. Xbox Narrative Graph: Inworld partnered with Xbox to create an AI-powered toolset that allows game developers to upload various materials to generate a branching graph of the narratives, mixed with character profiles and knowledge for a game. This toolset can then propose dialogue, story options and add fully AI-enabled NPCs based on the Inworld engine. 

Convai’s “Second Life”

Convai impressed players at GDC with a Cyberpunk-inspired experience called “Second Life,” showing off how AI NPCs can function as guides for newer players. They can provide information about locations and even teleport players where they want to go. The bots have a deep understanding of the environment around them, mixed with long-term memory to recall player journeys, to be incredibly useful.

🚩 Potential Concerns

These technologies would make any gamer giddy with excitement. It’s incredible to have fully original conversations about the game world, items, objectives, and more with memory recall through the power of your voice. That being said, the technology presents some worrying questions about how it affects voice actors and other human talent that contribute to the game experience. God of War’s Kratos wouldn’t be quite the same without Christopher Judge’s incredible voice work, for example. Maintaining the human touch on writing, emotionality, NPCs, and voices is crucial as the technology moves forward.


👀 Our POV

It’s rare that I‘m so wildly conflicted on a piece of technology the way I am about AI in video games. I can’t deny how cool this stuff is and how excited I’d be to get my hands on it in a game. I’ve always felt limited by dialogue options or mindless NPCs that spout the same 5 lines no matter what you do. The possibility of NPCs with long-term memories, unique responses, and dynamic interactions based on what I want to say is nothing short of awe-inducing. However, I can’t jump on the bandwagon yet when I have friends who make a career out of voice acting. This technology is nearly a death whistle for their jobs. My hope is that a compromise can be found where the human element isn’t lost but rather elevated. 

AI is an inevitability in our world and our work. Attempting to avoid it only serves as a disservice to solving the issues it presents. We’re glad to have conversations around this technology and its challenges because there’s no doubt it will change the world as we know it. It just needs to happen with ethics and people in mind. It would be wise for us all to stay updated on AI developments and consider how it can benefit us, our teams, and our businesses.
 
- Brendan Valentine (Private Lobby)

🕳️ A battle over IP in World Building: UEFN, game modes, and The Pit

The wild west of UGC continues in Fortnite’s UEFN. This is a difficult story with as many layers as Shrek, while playing an incredible important role in the development of trademarks, IP, and ownership in the world of UGC.

This one could be a ride, you’re going to want to buckle up…

Let’s start with The Pit. The Pit is one of, if not the most popular map in UEFN. According to Fortnite.gg, the map has averaged over 45K concurrent players over the last week, peaking at 84K players. If Fortnite.gg’s estimates are correct, the map will have generated between $123.2K - $462K in just the past week!

Great, so what’s the battle we teased?

The developer of The Pit, Geerzy, has trademarked the name “The Pit” and are looking to defend their rights within UEFN. This has caused controversy with Epic taking down the map(s) that were reported.

The team behind UEFN responded:


👀 Our POV

This is less a fight over a name and more a fight over a game mode. As Simon from Hypixel addressed, The Pit is not entirely Geerzy’s invention as The Pit was and has existed in Minecraft and Hypixel since 2018.

We’ll likely see a few more battles like this as Epic Games and Fortnite work through taming the wild west of UGC that has been UEFN over the past year.

I do think that they have handled this well in the end but they have to find a way to not let creators be punished so harshly by copyright strikes and takedowns.

A creator’s world being taken down at all, more less for a week or more can completely kill any chance of viability and longevity, on top of massive opportunity cost.

- Zach Eller (Private Lobby)

🏆 Discord matches with perfect partner

source: Discord

If you own a gaming PC, there’s a really good chance that you have either Discord or VALORANT downloaded. Most likely both…

This past week Discord announced their partnership alongside Riot Games & VALORANT, allowing Discord users to purchase customized avatar decorations & animated effects for profiles based on VALORANT agents Omen, Jett, Reyna and the newest agent Clove. Currently, the new cosmetics are available for $15.99 or $11.99 for Discord Nitro users.

Discord rolled out custom avatar decorations & animations the past year as another revenue stream for the social media platform. The custom avatar decorations give users the choice to purchase these add-ons for a few dollars in exchange for some animated cosmetics for their profile.

The shop still new, doesn’t carry a large selection to choose from with all of current options being generic & created by Discord. This partnership with Riot is the first collab available in the shop and shows a glimpse of what the true potential is with Discord’s custom avatars.


👀 Our POV

This partnership makes perfect sense bringing two programs you would most likely find on a gaming PC. Discord notes that VALORANT is one of their top 5 games showing how powerful these two are together.

Discord gets some revenue (I’m sure Riot is getting a cut) and exposes its users to the new shop features. While Riot Games gets free promotion for VALORANT, giving their players a way to market the game for free to their friends.

Looking forward to see where Discord takes this — Will Discord stick with games with potentials like Fortnite, CS2, League of Legends, etc. Or could they roll this out even more with creators…

Personally, I’d love to see gaming IP like Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Street Fighter make it into the shop and then movie & film IP like Star Wars and Marvel would be a big hit as well.

- Justin Palacios (Private Lobby)

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