AI vs NFTs… What’s really the next big thing in games? | Pocket Gamer.biz

Will NFTs and blockchain tech ever become mainstream? What’s next with AI? How’s hardware changing?

There are plenty of questions like these when it comes to the future of the games industry, only amplified by the space’s fast-evolving track record. Multiplayer CEO Cihat Bakir, Creative Mobile advisor Paul Flanagan, Supremacy Games CEO Jari Pauna, Azul Creative Mds director Arzu Celik, and Wodo Network CTO and co-founder Serhat Tanrıkut, talked all about their hopes and concerns for the future at PGC London…

Is AI really the next big thing?

In discussing what the next frontier of gaming could be, AI was naturally the first possibility to arise.

“On the AI side, who can even imagine what will happen?” asked Bakir. “How much more efficiency will we get with what we do? AI will basically go with every part of the experience in the future.”

“There’s probably a market for an AI that will protect privacy,” suggested Flanagan. “And maybe rules need to be put in place to slow down or stop AI cloning games.”

“We can get stuff done cheap and fast with AI,” Pauna said. “Right now it’s levelling the playing field for smaller developers. I don’t think anyone needs to be afraid that they’ll lose their job – people weren’t against synthesisers in music or Photoshop for visuals.”

“I’ll need some sort of AI help to compete with the cyborgs,” Bakir quipped.

Is blockchain over?

Moving onto blockchain, the panel didn’t express such intrinsic expectations for the future. “We started out in the hype cycle, but my view now is blockchain is just a tool. It’s just a technology,” Flanagan said.

“I’m concerned about the fierce hate towards blockchain. It might be a minority but it’s certainly a vocal minority. It makes all the sense in the world that if you have something like in-game trading cards, that you can sell them,” said Pauna.

But overall, conversation around blockchain and the metaverse as the next big frontier paled in comparison to artificial intelligence. Tanrıkut noted his expectation for a rise in new hardware that’s “really needed”, while Celik suggested something entirely new could come along: “Anything’s possible.”

There’s a lot more still to discover from PGC London 2024. Find out more about what’s on and how you can be part of it here.