Neural network games: how the game industry in Russia saves with the help of AI

Russian game studios have begun to actively use neural networks to create characters, architecture, backgrounds and dialogues. From companies from the fields of IT, gaming and design, the demand for specialists with the skills to use neural networks is really growing, confirms Elena Artemyeva, Director of Analytics and Data Science at the Rabota.ru service. They should be able to formulate a query to generate an image. Keywords are used not only to describe the character or what is happening in the picture, but also the manner in which it should be generated. This can be either a general description of the style, or a mention of a specific artist, era or direction in art (baroque, neoclassicism, etc.).

The free version, for example, of the Midjourney service allows you to generate and download 12 images, but does not provide access to your personal account, for $10 you can create up to 200 images per month, for $30 you can generate an infinite number of images. A $600 corporate subscription lets you create pictures as a team and view each other’s individual work. This is much cheaper and much faster than the work of the artist. “Artists, designers, UI designers spend about 20–30% of the total project costs, depending on the type of project,” estimates independent video game expert Alexander Kuzmenko. “If it’s a game for mobile devices, which mainly travels due to beautiful pictures, then the costs can reach up to 50%.”