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XCOM creator Gollop voices concern over "paper-thin illusion" of weak AI

XCOM creator Julian Gollop has discussed the pitfalls of weak AI in games during a new interview. The developer has voiced concern that visuals are becoming the main focus of games, rather than intelligent enemies or NPCs, creating what he called an "elaborate paper-thin illusion", of a believable world.

Speaking with PC Gamer, Gollop said attention has turned to visuals because, "It’s the thing that immediately impresses people. As soon as you start interacting with a world of pretty graphics then you realise that actually it’s not really that interactive. It’s always bugged me about the way computer games developed over the years.

"Even if you take Assassin’s Creed, which is a phenomenally complex game with all these NPCs wandering around, it is nothing but an elaborate paper-thin illusion, to be honest. I mean, computer games didn’t develop really in that direction, and I guess what people enjoy and what they like at the psychological level is more to do with having their own ego massaged in certain ways through these very simple reward cycles.”

Gollop also explained that while his AI in XCOM was emulating intelligence - due to a lack of power back then - there was still more believability due to the unpredictable nature of the game's alien enemies. Leaving some things to chance - rather than setting everything in stone - is the key, he said.

But this also stems to the marketing machine and design process, he stressed, “I think stuff today is so overdesigned, it’s unbelievable. There are people obsessing about tiny details about stuff. Especially when you have marketing people involved so how your main character is presented suddenly becomes a huge PR and marketing issue.”

“I really like games that generate stuff for you rather than have everything over-designed. My obsession was always with scenario generators, if you want to call them that, where things are generated for the player to explore and it may be something nobody else has ever played because it’s pseudo-randomly generated."

What about you? Do you like your gaming experiences to be randomly or procedurally generated? Does weak AI break immersion in a shiny world with insane visuals? Let us know what you think below.

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XCOM: Enemy Unknown

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Dave Cook

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Dave worked on VG247 for an extended period manging much of the site's news output. As well as his experience in games media, he writes for comics, and now specializes in books about gaming history.

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