Summary

  • EA Sports revealed it leveraged machine learning AI to help launch its EA Sports College Football 25 game.
  • In an investor call, CEO Andrew Wilson revealed that machine learning helped with the creation of 11,000 players, which EA artists then enhanced.
  • News of EA's use of AI comes as SAG-AFTRA strikes over AI protection and Call of Duty being accused of using generative AI.

As the battle between gamers, game developers, voice actors and game employees against Artificial Intelligence (AI), both generative and machine-based, continues to wage on, EA has revealed that it leveraged AI in its recent EA Sports College Football 25 release. Without AI, EA says it "simply would not have been able to deliver" the game.

Related

AI Is Ruining The Joy Of Experiencing New Art

WWE 2K24 is under fire for a piece of artwork that isn't even made with AI, but a real artist.

Posts

News of EA's use of AI comes hot on the heels of SAG-AFTRA executing a strike for protection of its members against the use of AI. It also comes as it was revealed that Activision reportedly sold a generative AI-based skin to its Call of Duty players. Such news was revealed during an investor call, where, in his prepared remarks, CEO Andrew Wilson explained the use of AI in College Football 25.

His comments shed light on just how EA was able to pull off the game, one that has managed to welcome over five million players. Of that number, 2.2 million were revealed to have shelled out at minimum $99 for Early Access ahead of the game's official launch.

EA Had Over 11,000 Player Likenesses And 150 Stadiums To Assemble

In the call, Wilson revealed just how massive the scope for College Football 25 was. Because while its Madden franchise is centered around the 30 NFL teams and a select group of legends, College Football 25 incorporates the 134 teams that make up the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) along with their stadiums.

And with College Football 25 being the first game to leverage Name, Image and Likeness rights, the players included (assuming they signed off on it) are real, making it no small number. "Creating 150 unique stadiums and over 11,000 player likenesses couldn't be done without EA's deep history of being a technology leader and by our incredibly passionate and talented teams harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to deliver truly amazing entertainment," Wilson said.

To make it happen, EA utilized photo imagery for the 11,000 players along with machine learning to generate a head, which its teams then manually touched up and enhanced. "We were able to take in a whole plethora of photo imagery across 11,000 players and build workflows out where AI and machine learning would generate head and our very talented artists would be able to come in and touch up and enhance those heads versus having to go through the full head development programs," Wilson explained. "In the absence of AI we simply would not have been able to deliver College Football at the level we did, even though we've given the team many, many years in development."

And there you have it. It's not exactly generative AI like Call of Duty used, which utilizes a variety of sources to spit out an artificially made image, but it is AI use nonetheless, albeit a bit more palatable. EA leveraged the tool to help make a mundane and likely tedious task less taxing. However, only time will tell if that's just the extent of AI use in video games.

Next

Blizzard's Union Wants To "Embolden" Other Developers

A senior World of Warcraft developer tells us how Blizzard workers went from walkouts in 2021, to forming one of the largest gaming unions last month.

Posts 1