泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, and Space Invaders

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, and Space Invaders

 

Technology seems less relevant to a video game. A language created and used by artificial intelligence (AI) was reported on the news recently. To sums up, machine intelligence, which was in the process of learning how to negotiate with the other AI, made the new language for itself to bring about better results. The method of AI communication was so quite unlike any other existing human languages that nobody could understand their conversation.

 

The brand-new language can imply many meanings. In the first place, human languages might not be effective. Negotiators usually exchange a lot of opinions to find a way to cope with a problem. AI may have made the entirely-new one which can replace inefficient human words. Secondly, technology on artificial intelligence has already developed enough to create a new language. Inventing a new language is a high level of mental activity. There have been no species who communicate well using their languages apart from the human. But, what was surprising to me was that this case may mean that AI can out of human control soon.

 

I was worried about it when Go master Lee Se-dol played against AlphaGo, a famed AI creation of Google. In the match with Lee, Alphago placed its unexpected moves and not only the professional Go player but also countless viewers from all over the world couldn't figure out what they mean. AI's unpredictable behavior would frighten us. AI technology has been growing and expanding in different areas of our lives. Nowadays, the Internet of things (IoT) technology controls home appliances such as television, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, or washing machines, etc. via devices connected to a network. If machine intelligence continues to grow without control, humans may have to live in an unstable situation where our household appliances supervise the home environment talking to one another with indecipherable words.

 

Isaac Asimov, who was known for his works of science fiction and pop-science, introduced "Three laws of robotics" in his short story. First, a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Second, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Third, a robot must protect its existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Some experts say that the Fourth law needs to be added that a robot has to explain to a human why it is doing something. Understanding of the process would probably help human progress because any powerful technology is inherently double-edged.

 

Artificial intelligence technologies are variously applied to the video game industry and I want as many as game developers to take AI-related problems very seriously. What AlphaGo's development team made the AlphaGo at first was playing a classic arcade game Space Invaders, which may signify that developments in AI are closely related to the video games.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui

 

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Past, present, and future of Steam (Part 5)

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Past, present, and future of Steam (Part 5)

 

Steam is now a video game distribution service based on electronic software distribution (ESD). The platform will keep making up for the weaknesses and building on the strengths. It will also expand its service into many diverse fields using its dominant subscriber pool. Steam users are expected to choose controller hardware including Steam Controller, which lets users play its entire collection of Steam games, and select a currency or a language as they wish as it expands its service to many countries. It is attempting to support VR content and to expand the business into non-PC games. The Steam platform is supposed to sustain steady growth based on its extensive experiences and a flood of users. So, let's find out what domestic developers should prepare to go into foreign markets through Valve's channel which has the potential to be a global video-game-distribution-platform superpower.

 

The Steam platform is an unfamiliar environment for local game developers. Some games made by national small and medium-sized businesses had performed poorly in recent years since they aimed at the global market using the distribution service from around 2015 until a couple of domestic games including PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) were a big success on the charts. Steam service is different from mobile game service which makes up the majority of South Korean game development. Most of the subscribers of the platform are hardcore gamers so that it is advantageous for a game developer to make a hardcore game if it wants to boost its sales. The top-ranked games are not mainly casual games but first-person shooter (FPS), real-time strategy (RTS), role-playing game (RPG), and sports games, etc. And a game maker that plans to launch its game on the Steam necessarily needs help from a publisher having the know-how to use the distribution service or pays a cost to learn for itself how to utilize the advanced platform through its long-term operation. The developer has to reach a certain standard after a public showing its game during the period supported by Steam if it wants to service the product for itself. The company should prepare video clips and social media sites in advance in time for the coming of the new game to meet users' expectations. Yet, poor translations for supporting multi-language do not help attain a high user-review-rating level. The seller also needs to draw up guidelines for various discount policies and make good use of them analyzing data between the appropriate discount rate and sales volume.

 

I took a loot at the leading distribution service Steam. The platform is continuing to grow and advance. My opinions in this article might be complete nonsense at this time next year. But I hope that it can be of any assistance to national video game developers which are now preparing for launching their games on Steam. I expect to see another Steam-released local game comparable to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds soon.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui

 

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Past, present, and future of Steam (Part 4)

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Past, present, and future of Steam (Part 4)

 

In January 2017, Steam graded on 100 top games released in 2016 regardless of their sales rank. The highest selling 12 games were classified as 'Platinum games'. It included The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Rocket League, Fallout 4, Sid Meier's Civilization VI, XCOM 2, No Man's Sky, Total War: Warhammer, Tom Clancy's The Division, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Grand Theft Auto V, Dark Souls III, and Dota 2. In particular, the achievement of Rocket League—the only Platinum-tiered indie game—was exceptional. The other independent games such as Stardew Valley, Subnautica, and Astroneer were landed on the top 100 best games. The four smaller-developer-made games on the chart show that the PC gaming platform seems to be in favor of indie games so far.

 

Compared 2015 top-sales ranking list by Steam Spy to the 2016 data, more than a few games are still loved by subscribers in 2016. Also, one can know that upper-ranked games generate significant revenue. The highest-placed games are especially bringing in from between 10 billion won to 200 billion won a year.

 

The top 5 sales list in 2015 is as follows.

 

No.1 Grand Theft Auto V : $161,253,971

No.2 Fallout 4 : $122,571,232

No.3 Metal Gear Solid V : $41,252,772

No.4 Counter Strike : Global Offensive : $40,929,890

No.5 The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt : $38,911,116

 

South Korean games have never been reached high on the annual Steam sales revenue, however, local games such as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), Black Desert Online, and Knight Online, etc. are expected to move up the chart in 2017 for the first time.

 

When it comes to the genre of computer games, PC gamers, who usually sit for long periods, become less biased than mobile gamers because of their environmental characteristics and difference of interfaces. Therefore there are various types of games including First-person shooter (FPS), Real-time strategy (RTS), and role-playing game (RPG), etc. being ranked in the top range.

 

Steam has seen steady sales increases, given many indie game makers a chance to grow, and proved that various genres of games can coexist together in the platform. Next time, I'd like to talk about the future of the video game digital distribution service and what a developer needs to launch its game on Steam.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui