Today's News:
* Sega Europe and Relic Entertainment announced that they have recently laid off around 121 employees at Relic. Official reason given was due to current restructuring plans and process that are going on at the studio.
Link:
https://twitter.com/relicgames/statu...60864651452416
* Add China's State Administration for Market Regulation to the growing list of government agencies that have given or hinted their approval for Microsoft's attempted purchase of Activision Blizzard. Unlike other government agencies that had some concerns or are against the deal over potential monopolistic issues in the general gaming and cloud gaming markets, China's government agency had no such concerns and gave their unconditional support for MS' purchase.
Link:
https://www.destructoid.com/china-ap...zard-purchase/
* According to Kotaku, Ubisoft currently has tentative plans to release their new open-world Star Wars game by Spring of 2024 but it is more likely that the game will be delayed to a later date of by Spring of 2025 instead. The rumored reason for the potential lengthy delay is due to potential development-related issues over the game's large scope.
Link:
https://kotaku.com/star-wars-ubisoft...ate-1850461329
* New York Times reported that Blizzard is currently developing an A.I. tool that would be able to produce concept art and assets for future projects.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Destructoid
In a report from The New York Times, Blizzard’s tool has been trained on assets from games like World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch. The machine, dubbed Blizzard Diffusion, could then produce new concept art for new ideas.
In an email seen by The New York Times, Blizzard chief design officer Allen Adham told employees about the new initiative dubbed last month.
“Prepare to be amazed,” said Adham in the email. “We are on the brink of a major evolution in how we build and manage our games.”
Blizzard Diffusion is reportedly being used to help generate concept art for game environments, characters, and outfits. The internal email also reportedly mentions possible tools for procedurally assisted level design, A.I.-assisted voice cloning, game coding, anti-toxicity, and “autonomous, intelligent, in-game NPCs.”
Blizzard has already been experimenting with A.I. tools in the past. According to the NYT’s report, Blizzard has already abandoned a machine-learning technology it had patented to create environmental textures, as it was taking up too much of artists’ time to be effective. Meanwhile, another tool was assisting with fitting headpieces to players in World of Warcraft.
“The goal is to remove the repetitive and manual process and enable artists to spend more time on creativity,” Blizzard’s vice president of global insights Andrew Guerrero told The New York Times. “Our goal with A.I. has been, and will continue to be, to try to make creative work easier.”
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Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/a...deo-games.html ,
https://www.destructoid.com/blizzard...n-assets-news/