AI Voice In Gaming — Current Practices, Public Stance, And Future Implications

Before you read the title and immediately say “No way, I’m outta here” while judging me, why not take a step back and consider this a new technology you’re investigating? The AI boom has brought about countless innovations. Before we outright declare all of them as evil, I believe it’s worth at least giving a thought to how they can be beneficial.

Today, the topic to discuss would be AI voiceovers and how they are implemented in gaming. Of course, I’m well aware of the public sentiment and even agree with many of the arguments made, but I’m not here to deliver a verdict today. Let’s systematically review the AI voice API tech, its current state, what it means for the industry, and how things may or may not change.

AI Voice In Gaming: How It Works

As I’m sure you’ve observed, the advancements in AI have made a lot of things a whole lot easier. One aspect of this AI implementation is voiceovers; modern text-to-speech text where you just write dialogues and you get full-fledged audio for it. You can then use this audio for a variety of purposes.

Advancement in the field of AI voice means it’s a viable option to be used in gaming. It’s now possible to write commands and dialogues with intent and subtext to obtain more varied, tone-specific audio and voice lines. Audio can be generated on demand and as per the author’s voice cues, and seamlessly integrated into the game development pipeline.

Opinion on AI Voice in Game Development
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With sufficient human input to regulate tone, maintain consistent variety, and regulate pitch and loudness, fairly solid AI voice logs can be obtained. It also facilitates localization efforts. Of course, it goes without saying that it in no way replaces human actors and natural voices. The tech is supposed to augment human input, help move things along quickly for non-pivotal moments.

The Pros Of AI Voice: Save Time And Money

First, let’s look at what benefits it can bring. For starters, I think we can agree that it helps speed up the development, final results aside. Automating certain steps along the cycle makes the final product ready in less time, demanding less manual effort. The developers can focus on more pressing and critical matters if small details in a game can be automated.

Second is the cost-effectiveness. This is especially relevant for indie development. Realizing your vision of the ideal game is no easy task, especially for indie developers who lack funding. If minor characters and dialogues can be automated with AI voice models, more resources and human input can be directed towards important characters, storylines, and core presentation. It makes indie development more consistent.

The Cons: Monotony And Public Hate

There’s no denying that an innovation brings a lot of comfort, but there’s no guarantee the final product will be mass appealing. Especially when the comfort is taken as “There’s no need to put in effort anymore.” This is exactly the case with AI voice. The tech has been universally adopted, and often used for low-effort, monotonous, and awful synthetic voiceovers that have no shred of engagement and soul behind them.

Every popular media suffers from this. As a result, people’s reaction to AI voice is often extremely hateful, and I can’t even blame them. It’s true that a majority of AI content out there is nothing but soulless reading of a script, which is highly off-putting. Plus, there’s the matter of AI voice replacing actual, genuine human voice actors and their thrilling performances. These are very real concerns and highlight the dark side of the new tech.

It’s The Implementation That Matters

That brings us to the end of the discussion. So, what do you think about using AI voice tech in gaming? Is it useful because it’s easy and cheap? Or is it hateful because of the soulless voices and no human input? If you ask me, I think it comes down to how it’s being implemented.

How do you think AI will affect the future of game development?
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If you see a product that has blatantly used AI voice scripts as a way to escape effort, go ahead and hate it, no questions asked. I’ve said it countless times that AI is supposed to be an augmentation tool, not a replacement. If, in the future, we see games honoring human input and voice acting, while using AI audio for certain NPC matters and speeding up less-significant parts of the game world, I think it has good potential. It’s the use that counts.