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Ludo.ai has been integrating AI into game development tools for three years. And now it is capitalizing on generative AI by creating a text-to-video generator tool for game developers.
Tom Pigott, CEO of Ludo.ai, said that the company has unveiled its beta test of its Video Generator tool. This tool empowers game developers to create gameplay videos in mere seconds, ushering in a new era of visualizing game concepts swiftly and seamlessly, he said.
The Video Generator takes text prompts and transforms them into engaging gameplay videos.
Pigott said, “At Ludo, we understand the increasing costs associated with game development, especially for indie developers. With our Video Generator, we’re simplifying the ideation and creation process, enabling developers to portray their ideas visually, offering a realistic glimpse of their games in action.”
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Piggott said his team has been working on AI game tools for a while and he wasn’t surprised to see generative AI break out as an industry-changing tech in the past year.
“I feel like the past couple years, we were more just trying to educate people and tell people these tools are going to be transformative and impactful. But a lot of that work was taken care of with Open AI and ChatGPT and the other image generators,” Pigott said.
The Video Generator is envisioned as a dynamic tool inspiring creators to visualize their gaming visions vividly. It allows users to effortlessly produce video content from simple text prompts, offering invaluable insights into game scenes, narratives, and dynamics in minutes. This accelerated visualization minimizes the risk of lost development hours by expediting experimentation and prototyping. Right now, it produces three-second videos for developers.
Pigott said the Video Generator not only enhances productivity but also drives creativity, streamlining the translation of game concepts into reality. It stands as a game-changer, fostering a new level of efficiency for game developers worldwide, he said.
The company handles many of the pre-production challenges like creating prototypes and using AI for ideation. Ludo.ai now has a suite of tools for ideation, image generation and now video generation. The latest tool can generate video images of gameplay for a game that hasn’t been created yet. It give people an idea of what a game is going to look and play like when it’s at a more advanced stage, and that should help executives greenlight a game project more easily, Pigott said.
“It allows for a lot of flexibility and speed,” Pigott said. “I think 2024 will certainly be a year in which AI-generated video is just going to be everywhere.”
The tool generates five to 10 seconds of video. The company has use a variety of source models and it can use more limited models as needed for its focus on game development.
“We’re not trying to be all things to all people,” Pigott said.
Pigott said the team has multiple AI experts, and they have never seen the tech accelerate so fast as in the past couple of years. But Pigott doesn’t think that AI will wipe out jobs. He believes game developers will become curators and editors of game assets.
“It saves you from all of the repetitive work and variations, and for the small game companies it gives them a competitive advantage to democratize things a little bit for a very low price,” said Pigott.
He believes the industry layoffs this year weren’t due to AI. Rather, they were more due to games launching and missing expectations.
An additional feature in beta allows developers to use their pre-created video footage and process it through the Video Generator, enabling experimentation with new features and elements. This innovative process, driven by AI-generated content analysis, expands the scope for developers to analyze, adapt, and implement changes dynamically.
As for the competition, Pigott said he isn’t worried.
“We offer a suite of tools that that are focused on the gaming developers,” Pigott said. “Our goal is to be the go-to platform for small and medium-size studios to come to for AI tools,” he said.
“We’re optimistic about 2024 and I think this video tool will be super interesting,” Pigott said.
Despite that big opportunity, Pigott said the company has been slow in terms of seeking funding from other sources, and it’s now generating its own revenue.
The company has more than 30,000 users now and it hasn’t raised any external capital. The platform was free until a couple of months ago and now the company is monetizing it.
“Our goal is still the same as when we first spoke, which is to be the comprehensive AI-powered platform for game developers,” Pigott said.
Pigott thinks the next steps for AI will be 3D asset generation. That might start in the user-generated content (UGC) realm first and gradually make its way up to the professional ranks. But he noted it will be challenging as the physics is pretty difficult.
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