[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Layoffs are continuing across various sectors on expectations of AI-driven productivity gains, but in gaming there appears to be a relatively widespread view that AI will not be able to replace people easily. That is especially true when it comes to creativity. Some also warn that using too much AI could cost gamers' trust.

The gaming industry has already come under AI's influence. As so-called vibe coding, or developing software with AI, spreads, the number of games released to the market has risen sharply in volume.

According to a recent Financial Times report citing global data from research firm ATTN Economy, 181,000 mobile games were released over the six months from December last year to May this year. Of those, 43,500 were for iOS and 137,000 were for Android. That was up 118 percent and 73 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

Layoffs have also emerged as an issue. A May report by GDC Festival of Gaming said 1 in 4 people in the game industry had been laid off over the past 2 years. Microsoft recently cut its Xbox division and also reduced headcount by 10 percent at its Candy Crush maker subsidiary King.

Still, opinions are divided on whether AI is playing a meaningful role in improving the gaming experience. Some say the productivity boost is also falling short of expectations.

In an ATTN report, 52 percent of game experts said generative AI was having a negative impact on the industry. That was a sharp rise from 30 percent in 2025 and 18 percent in 2024. The share saying AI had a positive impact was just 7 percent.

AI is also sparking controversy among gamers. The Financial Times said Crazy Taxi: World Tour, which drew attention even before its release, became embroiled in online controversy over whether it used generative AI in development. As the mood grew tense, Sega, the developer, said it used generative AI as a developer support tool but did not use AI for characters that appear in the game.

Those who view generative AI positively see NPCs, or non-playing characters, as the most interesting area for applying AI.

They say RPGs and virtual world games such as Zelda and Call of Duty have so far had interactions with characters that mostly follow fixed scenarios, but AI is presenting the possibility of leading to an era in which players and NPCs can freely exchange conversation.

But there are also skeptical views.

Lexi Sidow of ATTN Economy cited data from digital marketing platform Klaviyo, saying, "Only 13 percent of consumers trust AI. When consumers find out that marketing content was made with AI, their likelihood of trusting that brand falls to about a quarter." She added, "Shoddy AI content comes at a price. That price is trust. In the game industry, this problem is much more serious. If a game looks like it was made by AI, user trust can be shaken, and if story or art style consistency collapses, users react very negatively."

Generative AI has sharply lowered the entry barrier in technical terms for game development, but the structure in which a small number of large companies dominate the industry remains unchanged.

The Financial Times cited ATTN Economy as saying the top 1 percent of game publishers in 2025 generated $75.6 billion in revenue, while the remaining 99 percent together made $6.1 billion. It added that the top 1 percent recorded 40.2 billion downloads that year, accounting for about 80 percent of global downloads.

Josh Chapman (조시 챔프먼), co-founder of Convoy, a venture capital firm that mainly invests in early-stage game startups, sees vibe coding as lowering the technical barrier to game development but does not expect it to break the dominance of large companies.

He said, "Incumbent large game companies currently have massive financial resources to secure top talent and have accumulated data over decades. It is really difficult for a new startup that received $4 million in seed funding to catch up with that competitiveness."