In recent years, AI has found its way into many forms of media, often dominating the discussion in writing and artistic communities. Many artists frown on AI, as it gives people the ability to create things that look uncanny and take away from the actual art that often takes hours to create. The music and writing industry has its issues with AI, as they take exception to how artificial intelligence can contort their words in ways that they don't mean. AI presents itself as a nightmare for the future of artistic mediums, but that does not stop some developers in the gaming industry from wanting to experiment with it.
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In an interview with 4Gamer, the CEO of Nihon Falcom, Toshihiro Kondo was asked about his views on AI in gaming and the JRPG genre. The CEO revealed that the company would look towards utilizing artificial intelligence in the future to speed up the global release of its RPGs, but this could set a problematic trend. AI does not do the best job at mimicking human speech, often not understanding patterns and, as a result, making dialogue that is often flawed. While this might not happen with translation, it could end up giving developers more work, as they will have to fix these mistakes before the translation is ready to go. While Toshihiro Kondo believes AI could speed up the development process, the opposite could turn out to be true.
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A Brief History of Nihon Falcom and the Trails Franchise
An Obscure Developer of a Popular JRPG Series
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The JRPG genre is one of the most diverse types of games in the entire industry, as series like Final Fantasy and Persona feel entirely different to play than popular action RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and NieR: Automata. This makes the genre appealing to many different gamers, as there is usually a title that appeals to even the most casual RPG player. While the genre features some of the most popular titles of all time (ex: Final Fantasy VII and Persona 5) it also features titles that are a mystery for fans outside of Japan and other Eastern regions. One of these obscure franchises is the Trails franchise, a series of RPGs developed by Japanese game creator Nihon Falcom.
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The first entry in the Trails series was released in June 2004, and 12 games have followed since, making the JRPG franchise one of the longest-running series in the genre. While the games are not known as much around the world as other series like Square Enix's immensely popular Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts franchises, they still have a massive market in Japan, which has allowed the series to persist to this day. The Trails series was only released in Japan until 2010, which kept the game a small secret to the rest of the gaming industry, but this drove up sales in Japan, making it one of the country's most successful game series.
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While the franchise has received games in the West for years now, it still does not have nearly the popularity that it does in Japan. Nihon Falcom hopes to change this with the upcoming release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The 1st, a remake of the game for the Nintendo Switch set to release in 2025. Only time will tell if this helps the series finally capture a Western audience, but Nihon Falcom's CEO Toshihiro Kondo has revealed new plans for the series going forward.
A Major Tech Development Could Mark an Industry Shift
AI Could Greatly Change Game Creation
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Recent reports have shown that Nihon Falcom wants to speed up the production time for their Trails series by changing the way they translate games for Western cultures. According to the company's CEO, AI could be seen as a method for translating games faster, as Nihon Falcom wants to make the series have more Western appeal and release the games faster. However, this idea could have unintended consequences, as rushed development usually turns out poorly for both the developers and the fans.
The first flaw comes when considering the application of current AI programs and how inaccurate they can be, especially when it comes to writing. For example, these AI programs are still early in development, which would mean that game companies would have to adapt to a new form of technology that might significantly lag behind the capabilities of the writers.
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Furthermore, some of these programs are quite poor at picking up speech patterns, so the translation of the Japanese lines would be completely flawed. Furthermore, the lines could be poorly conveyed, thus changing the entire meaning of crucial scenes in the story. Along with this AI translation, the company wants to increase the rate of game production, which can cause a decrease in quality despite the quantity increase.
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Over the years, many developers have tried to rush development to meet holiday deadlines, and this often ends up poorly for the company. While it might drive up sales in the short term, it will hinder long-term success, as these games often turn out to be flawed messes that are littered with bugs, poor writing, and subpar gameplay. Rushing development with AI translation will only continue to make these issues more apparent, as the Western versions of translated games could end up being far worse than their Eastern counterparts.
Furthermore, AI use in the gaming industries could lead to more layoffs from AAA developers, as the industry begins to realize that utilizing AI could help them avoid paying wages to hard-working artists. Overall, AI should be kept far away from the gaming industry, as it could end up rushing development, creating subpar experiences, and exacerbating a layoff problem that the industry seemingly has no intent of stopping any time soon.
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