In brief
- Google Cloud exec Jack Buser warned that rising costs and stagnant play time have left studios with a broken business model.
- A recent Google Cloud study said nine of 10 developers now use AI tools somewhere in production.
- While critics fear job losses and backlash as AI reshapes game design, Buser said AI can create “living games.”
Generative AI is triggering an industry-wide reckoning in gaming—and some studios won’t survive the fallout.
That’s the warning from Jack Buser, global games director at Google Cloud, who says the industry is entering an upheaval as big as any in its history.
“Some of these game companies are going to make it, and some of them are not,” Buser told Decrypt. “And some are going to be born through this revolution.”
Buser, a 30-year industry veteran, works with publishers and studios to adopt cloud infrastructure and AI, from scaling multiplayer systems to analyzing player data and testing generative tools. That role puts him at the intersection of big tech and game development, where studios connect to Google’s servers and AI models to build, or sustain, their titles.
He pointed out that AI is arriving just as developers face mounting financial pressure and shrinking player engagement with new games.
“Over half of play time is in games more than six years old,” he said. “So if you’re making a new game, you’re competing for less than half of the available play time. And if you’re the creator of one of those older games, you’re struggling to keep it relevant and keep players engaged.”
Following decades of growth, the global games industry dipped post-pandemic, with revenues falling in 2022 before recovering. In 2024, it generated $182.7 billion, up 3.2% from the year before. Revenues are expected to rise to $188.9 billion in 2025, a 3.4% increase.
“You have a broken business model, and the result is layoffs, game cancellations, and other problems across the games industry in recent years,” Buser said.
However, Buser believes generative AI could be the industry’s way out. A Harris Poll commissioned by Google found that nine out of 10 developers are already using AI tools in some part of the production process.
“If you go use case by use case in your development pipeline, from concept to quality assurance, and you attack every use case with AI, you can have quite a radical reduction in development time,” he said.
Developers are testing generative tools aimed at changing how games look, feel, and evolve in real time. Buser called this the era of the “living game”—titles that use AI in real time to analyze player behavior and generate new content on the fly. Unlike traditional games, which rely on patches and downloadable content (DLC) drops, these systems could adapt in minutes rather than months.
“Take Darth Vader in Fortnite, for example—the player reaction was strong,” Buser said. “We’re just scratching the surface.”
But the rollout wasn’t smooth. When Fortnite introduced an AI-powered Darth Vader earlier this year, the bot spewed racist and homophobic slurs before Epic Games quickly patched the system.
Not everyone welcomed the experiment. Following the release, SAG-AFTRA filed a labor complaint against Epic subsidiary Llama Productions, accusing the company of replacing voice actors with artificial intelligence without union consent.
“This charge concerns the union’s critical role in negotiating terms concerning the replacement of bargaining unit work with AI technology,” a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson told Decrypt. “We are very supportive of AI tools to enhance the audience experience, but employers cannot implement these types of uses without coming to the union first and bargaining terms.”
Buser drew comparisons between the increased role of AI and earlier shakeups in gaming history—moments when technological shifts redrew the industry map. Some companies adapted to the move from cartridges to CD-ROMs. Others didn’t.
“You will see some companies that did not make it,” Buser said. “And then you see other just massive game companies today that were what I’ll call CD-ROM-native. This is the exact same thing happening now.”
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