Jack Buser is Google Cloud global director for games, a role in which he “enable[s] transformation of game industry developers, publishers and platforms with AI and cloud solutions.” And from that lofty perch he has devised a solution for the woes plaguing the videogame business. Can you guess what it is? I’ll tell you: It’s AI.
In an interview with GamesIndustry, Buser said the videogame business is “finally returning to revenue growth,” but at the same time profits are declining, games are being cancelled, and layoffs continue to sweep the industry. The only real growth is coming from Roblox and China, and if you’re not in one of those categories, “odds are you’re struggling to some extent.”
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Buser said AI is rather like Iron Man’s suit—”put it on and see what types of superpowers it’s able to grant you”—but he gives up the game a little bit near the end of the report. After saying the game industry is “broken,” which is why we’ve seen tens of thousands of layoffs over the past few years, he explicitly positions AI as the solution to the problem—for the business. For the people who work in it? Well, not so much. But that’s not the fault of AI!
The giveaway is of course Buser’s use of “right-size,” a euphemism for laying off even more people—defined by the Cambridge dictionary as “the process of making a company or organization a more effective size, especially by reducing the number of people working for it.” The goal, in other words, is not to protect people, but to protect profits—understandable from the perspective of a Google executive, I suppose, but not a solution I have much interest in.
Buser’s previous gig was “global director for all games business development activities for Stadia,” and we all know how that turned out: An overhyped promise of a bold, accessible future for gaming that never went anywhere except, eventually, away. It’s not hard to see parallels with the relentless push for AI-driven game development, which we’re repeatedly assured is an inevitable future: Yes, it may be useful for specific tasks like software debugging, but it has yet to come close to delivering on the hype. (I’m still waiting for an update on Elon Musk’s promise to release “a great AI-generated game” by the end of 2026.)
I do agree with Buser that the conversation would be helped immensely by using better, more precise language in place of the catch-all of “AI”: Technological advancement has always been an essential part of game dev, and that that’s going to continue to be the case moving forward. He might even be correct in his broader thesis, to the extent that maybe the videogame industry as a whole can start making more money with less effort by leaning heavily into AI garbo: After all, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the advent of reality television, it’s that creative bankruptcy will not prevent you from making serious bank. Sure, we all end up playing Courtroom Chaos Starring Snoop Dogg, and that’ll suck, but at least the money guys will be alright.
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