As more and more game companies are growing a little bolder about just straight-up admitting that huge chunks of their games are AI generated, there are still some exhibiting a bit more caution. One of those appears to be Nippon Ichi Software, developer of Disgaea and publisher of series like Trails and Ys.
I spoke to Nippon Ichi CEO and NIS America president Kenzo Saruhashi at PAX West a few weeks ago, during which time I asked him about AI, first just as a follow-up to a question about translation and localization of the company’s games. Saruhashi was recently appointed president of NIS America in addition to his role as CEO of Nippon Ichi, and one of the aims of that is for the two branches of the company to become more unified and ultimately release more games in the West. Saruhashi told me this includes trying to release more games simultaneously worldwide, instead of delaying Western releases until months after they’re out in Japan. But doing that requires ramping up localization capabilities within the company.
Given the current climate, it might be tempting to jump to using generative AI for this sort of thing. Other companies are certainly talking big games about it lately, though at least in anime its use has been both wildly unpopular and also frequently very, very wrong. So I asked Saruhashi if the company was currently using AI for localization, and here’s what he said:
We are not specifically at the moment. But we are researching it, because we know that there are a lot of companies right now that are utilizing AI, and it’s not necessarily that we would just allow AI to completely take over the responsibility for localization or anything of that nature, but more in order to ensure the quality. We want to make sure that we can ensure the quality is there at the same time if we were to use it. So right now we’re in a researching phase to see whether that’s something that’s possible. Personally, I don’t think that it’s necessarily just that utilizing AI will necessarily make things faster.
I followed up: Does this philosophy apply to all aspects of his business? It seems it largely does:
Well, let me start by saying that I can definitely feel there’s a certain sense of pressure in the creative industry as a whole that we’re all feeling from AI. What I’m hearing a lot as I discussed this matter with other developers and hearing what they’re saying is really that for us, the end goal is really just to make a quality game for the fans. And in the midst of that, we can’t simply ignore AI entirely. And so we do at least have to research it as a possibility moving forward, and I agree with that sentiment. I think if you were to apply AI, the best way to do so would be in a way that actually improves the quality of the game, so we’re not just looking at it specifically from an efficiency standpoint. I don’t think that’s really the way to look at it. You should look at it as, “does it improve the quality of the end product?”
Admittedly, “researching” has, for many companies, been the very first step into full-on AI content creation, especially at Japanese game studios, so regard all this with some skepticism (still reeling from the Level-5 AI use over here!). But at least for now I can take a deep breath and give Village in the Shade a shot without worry.