miHoYo is developing an AI model! Over the next three years, it could pour as much as 100 billion RMB into it. Liu Wei: If it fails, we’ll just treat it as setting off fireworks.

"Genshin Impact" developer miHoYo announces a maximum investment of 100 billion RMB in AI foundational large models, aiming to create personalized game content within three years. The founder openly states that if it fails, they'll just light fireworks. Meanwhile, major game companies are also actively positioning themselves, indicating that in-house developed AI has become an industry trend.

miHoYo plans to invest up to 100 billion RMB in in-house developed AI models

According to Chinese media "Jingke," miHoYo founder Liu Wei (Da Wei Ge) revealed at the Beijing Tech Sharing Conference on May 15 that the company has established its development focus in the AI field. In the next three years, it will invest up to 100 billion RMB to fully develop in-house developed foundational large models.

He hopes that through in-house developed models, AI will have self-evolution capabilities, thereby changing the gaming experience, with plans to create fully personalized game content within three years. The top decision-makers must be directly involved in coding and training to ensure technological sensitivity.

Liu Wei pointed out that the team must firmly dedicate computing power, and if ultimately unsuccessful, they will accept it as lighting a big fireworks display.

Image source: CCTV TV interview screenshot, 2022, miHoYo co-founder Liu Wei (Da Wei Ge) interviewed by CCTV

miHoYo invested in MiniMax, Cai Haoyu left to develop AI games

In addition to internal R&D, miHoYo is also expanding through external investments.

Chinese AI company MiniMax listed on Hong Kong stocks in January this year. During its development, it received investments from miHoYo, Tencent, and other institutions, raising a total of $1.55 billion over four years; after Cai Haoyu, the former chairman of miHoYo, stepped down, he founded the AI startup Anuttacon.

Anuttacon has recruited professionals from companies like Microsoft and Amazon, and their first game is an AI-powered first-person dialogue game "Whispers from the Star," which was launched on Steam last year.

In the game, players can have AI voice conversations with the female protagonist Stella, and their speech directly affects the character’s life and death.

Image source: Steam screenshot of "Whispers from the Star"

Cai Haoyu predicted: future gaming industry will only have geniuses and enthusiasts

Cai Haoyu posted in 2024 that generative AI has thoroughly changed game development methods. The future gaming industry will be left with only a few geniuses and a large number of amateur enthusiasts creating for personal interests. Ordinary developers might need to consider switching careers.

As an experimental work of Cai Haoyu’s new company, "Whispers from the Star" received polarized reviews after release.

Players giving positive feedback said that interactions with characters felt very natural, successfully creating an experience akin to real human conversation. However, critics strongly questioned the game's privacy policy, pointing out that the official terms require users to relinquish ownership of their voice content; some players also criticized the story as thin, lacking the depth of adventure games, and the dialogue still felt like a clear AI word-chain.

Cygames also invests in in-house developed AI models

Investing in AI R&D has become a common trend in the gaming industry. Japanese mobile game developer Cygames, known for "Uma Musume Pretty Derby," has announced the establishment of a subsidiary, Cygames AI Studio.

The company is developing small-scale language models (SLM) and potential diffusion models (LDM) for gaming and animation purposes, aiming to build a system that expands creators’ creativity. Cygames is also recruiting positions like language model engineers, hoping to utilize internal data for model training.

Additionally, major Japanese game companies like Capcom and SEGA have integrated AI into early art concept development and community comment filtering workflows, indicating that related technologies are gradually penetrating into game production.

Further reading:
Cygames establishes AI company! Developing in-house developed game and animation AI models, recruiting AI vocalists
G-胖 is very low-profile! Steam founder once sponsored OpenAI with 20 million dollars and even recommended Hideo Kojima to meet Elon Musk