Poll #18: 11/01/00 - 12/01/00


What's Wrong (If Anything) with AI in Games Today?
Do you think AI in games today is generally lacking? Why?
  
It's too market driven--companies can sell games with it, so they don't spend time on good AI. (50)
17%
  
Consumers by and large don't want it--they just want a game that they can win. (15)
5%
  
Most developers don't have a clue how to do good game AI, so their games don't have it. (59)
20%
  
There are a few games with challenging AIs out there, but it's pretty much blind luck. (21)
7%
  
It's an evolutionary process--game AI is better today than it was 5 years ago, and it'll be even better 5 years from now. (111)
37%
  
Actually, I think most games have pretty darn good AI as it is. (8)
3%
  
I honestly don't care about it one way or the other. (2)
1%
  
What's really wrong with game AI today is... (enter your answer via comment) (35)
12%

Total Votes: 301

FINAL RESULTS
Steve's Comments: Interesting! I see that a plurality of folks feel that game AI is getting better and better, but it's not a majority (i.e., more than 50%). That tells me we've got a lot of work to do as developers.

What kind of work, though, is hard to figure out from these results. A lot of repondents (20%) seem to think we all need to go back to school, while nearly as many (17%) take the position that companies won't bother working on good AI anyway. What surprises me the most, I think, is that only 5% of respondents think that the consumer isn't actually asking for good AI--that's a much lower number than what most developres at the GDC AI oundtables seem to think.