Despite all the jokes gamers make about NPCs, the truth is they really like them. In our report, The Future of NPCs: What Gamers Demand From Next-Gen Character Future of NPCs: What Gamers Demand From Next-Gen Characters, an overwhelming majority of the 1,002 US-based gamers we surveyed said that NPCs were important to them.
This is particularly true in the Gen Y and Millennial demographics that game developers are particularly focused on winning over.
While gamers make do with current NPCs, it hasn’t been without complaint. NPCs are mocked because gamers are so frustrated with how unnaturally they act. To the point that they parody or troll them.
Here are the top dislikes of gamers:
In an ideal world, NPCs would be able to have complex interactions with players. They believe this is critical to improving gameplay.
Advanced AI NPCs are NPCs that are powered by multiple machine learning models designed to mimic the dynamic social nature of human interaction. These include natural language, text-to-speech, machine vision, and emotional processing models that allow advanced AI NPCs to engage in complex, real-time unscripted conversations and show awareness of players and their surroundings.
When presented with examples of these characters responding in-character and with humor to real-time player questions, gamer reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
You might be surprised to know that gamers agreed on something. So, were we. Of the gamers we surveyed, 99% believe advanced AI NPCs will improve their game play.
That includes in these ways:
Unsurprisingly, gamers who are more immersed in their gaming experience and having more fun while gaming are liable to spend more time – and money – on gaming. Our study found that gamers would play more and pay a premium for games with advanced AI NPCs.
It’s not surprising that gamers loved the concept of advanced AI NPCs. Many of the traits that gamers would like to see more of from NPCs can be easily implemented with more advanced AI technology. And those traits they hate? More advanced AI would make them a thing of the past.
There’s a lot more information in the report that can help developers better understand why they should be focused on upleveling their NPCs. I recommend you take some time to read through it carefully to fully understand gamers’ opinions.
Here are a few comments they made about Advanced AI NPCs:
“The potential this kind of tech has for making game worlds more authentic and immersive is astronomical!”
“I really like them more than the normal NPCs because AI can provide everything you need such as interaction, backstory, and your relationship with them.”
“It feels like a real person that I am communicating with.”
At Inworld, we make creating advanced AI NPCs easy for studios of all sizes. We have a no-code studio where developers, narrative designers, or producers can come up with new characters in minutes by just typing, adjusting the character’s personality dials, and adding background information on the game world.
That’s it. You can then test and refine the character so their personality and answers are aligned with your game world.
Our characters are avatar agnostic and can be easily deployed in Unity, Unreal Engine and Node.js experiences through our integrations.
Studios can choose a mix of scripted and unscripted dialogue by creating triggers for certain lines. It’s also possible in our custom plans to use actors to voice characters that have existing voices.
Inworld characters are also able to be situationally aware and have in-scene actions or respond to player actions. They’re also able to talk to other characters in-character.
How do we do it? We use over 20 machine learning models to work to generate different aspects of our characters. We break those things down into three categories.
All the things that make up who a person is – like how quick they are to laughter – or anger.
All the things that help AI characters understand and react to what’s happening when you’re interacting with them over text, voice, and in virtual worlds.
All the things that help characters respond in real-time to players or things happening in a virtual world.
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