With the explosion of generative AI post-ChatGPT, the conversation surrounding machines replacing human roles has reached a fever pitch. Game developers are hardly exempt from this discourse. While unofficial, a report from the overseas media outlet Totally Human Media suggests that out of 114,000 games registered on Steam, approximately 7% (7,818 titles) have incorporated generative AI into their development, an eight-fold increase since April of last year. Meanwhile, reports of Microsoft downsizing its gaming divisions in favor of AI integration have only added fuel to the fire.

For industry professionals, navigating this AI landscape is no longer optional. Kim Yong-ha, the Executive Producer of Blue Archive who heads the IO division at NEXON Games, shared personal experiences on the subject at the 2025 Creative Talent Companion Project open lecture, held on the 24th at the Hanseong Baekje Museum. This event was hosted by the Korea Creative Content Agency and organized by Gem-Blo Company.

The lecture focused on 'Developing Anime-style Games in the AI Era.' Kim Yong-ha began with a blunt assessment: "Fans of character-driven games generally don't care for generative AI content. Personally, I find the idea of spending money on an image produced by a mere 'click' quite repulsive." Kim Yong-ha continued, "That is why I wanted to talk about how we should approach AI within this specific genre."

Beyond the aforementioned 'repulsion,' the current state of AI is simply not reliable enough for direct content production. Kim Yong-ha explained, "I thought it would be great if AI could handle level design, so I tasked it with creating a puzzle. I had it try Sokoban, a classic box-pushing game, and found that even the latest models struggle as soon as the difficulty spikes. If the AI can't solve the puzzles, creating them is a lost cause."

The limitations persist in motion capture and rigging—the process of setting up a 3D skeleton for character movement. "Rigging is a tedious, mandatory precursor to animation, and since papers claim AI handles this well, we tested it," noted Kim Yong-ha. "In practice, the AI attached bones in nonsensical ways that made the character physically impossible to move. We spent a month or two trying to make it work before eventually giving up."

Then there is the matter of cost. Kim Yong-ha pointed to the VR game 'Focus on You,' which was developed under Kim Yong-ha's direction. "We integrated an AI service for user voice recognition, but maintaining that service costs money. It was impossible to bake those recurring costs into the game's price. Because it's a packaged game, it meant paying every time a player used the feature, so we eventually removed the voice recognition functionality," Kim Yong-ha explained. Building a custom in-house solution is an alternative, but Kim Yong-ha emphasized that the development costs are far from trivial.

In short, generative AI has limited utility in game development, and the costs of building or subscribing to these services are prohibitive. Kim Yong-ha stated, "If you think AI development means just 'clicking' to generate images, dialogue, and code, you'll find plenty of such games on Steam. But they don't sell well, they get poor ratings, and they aren't fun to make. That methodology is fundamentally flawed."

So, how does the Blue Archive team actually use AI? Primarily as a communication tool. The team uses an in-house chatbot to manage annual leave, organize meeting minutes, and handle translations. "We service the game in Japan and China," Kim Yong-ha mentioned. "We even have a feature that takes a comic strip and outputs a translated version, which significantly eases the communication burden and automates repetitive tasks for the staff."

AI is also used in features that players directly experience, such as the presentation when unlocking a new character. Kim Yong-ha explained, "It involves close-ups of specific character parts—a repetitive task required every time we create a new character. We tested training an AI to automate this. It worked well enough to identify the key points of a character to highlight, turning a two-day task into a 30-minute job."

Beyond simple automation, the team is looking at how AI can offer players unique experiences. In Blue Archive, the character Arona calls out the player's ('Sensei's') name. Initially, the team explored automating lip-sync animation to match pre-recorded dialogue. However, they found that when the character's face is shown in close-up, the results were inconsistent and required too much manual correction. Kim Yong-ha noted, "Instead, we decided it worked best for specific moments, like when Arona calls the player's name."

Ultimately, the consensus from Kim Yong-ha is that replacing humans with AI is a dead end. "We should focus on how to increase the convenience for current developers," Kim Yong-ha argued. "Positions that provide dedicated support are crucial. I believe the roles of machine learning engineers and technical artists will become increasingly vital in game development."

The NEXON Games IO division actually hosts a dedicated machine learning team. They research and develop AI tools requested by the planning team, verify feasibility, implement them, and iterate based on feedback. By building necessary datasets and automating repetitive workflows, they grant developers more room to focus on areas that truly require human creativity.

Finally, Kim Yong-ha shared thoughts on developing games entirely with AI. Regarding 'vibe coding' (creating results through prompts without writing code), Kim Yong-ha said, "It's very meaningful for prototyping. Things that used to take days can now be tested in minutes with good prompting. However, in a real production environment, AI output often conflicts with existing code or causes errors. You have to review everything with a fine-toothed comb. Implementing it wholesale in a codebase exceeding 10,000 lines is just not feasible."

On the topic of AI-driven free-flowing conversation between users and characters, Kim Yong-ha had reservations. "One thing to consider is that if a character answers any question, their characterization breaks. Within the lore, there are things characters shouldn't say. Answering everything indiscriminately ruins the persona. To maintain character integrity and gameplay, you need to impose constraints."