In a recent survey, we explored gamers’ attitudes towards the use of Gen AI in video games and whether those attitudes varied by demographics and gaming motivations. The overwhelmingly negative attitude stood out compared to other surveys we’ve run over the past decade.
A Quick Note on the Survey Data
The Gamer Motivation Profile is a 5-minute survey that allows gamers to get a personalized report of their gaming motivations, and see how they compare with other gamers. Over 1.75 million gamers worldwide have taken this survey. The 12 motivations that are measured in our model were identified via statistical analysis of how gaming motivations cluster together.
See how you compare with other gamers. Take a 5-minute survey and get your Gamer Motivation Profile along with personalized game recommendations.
In an optional survey (N=1,799) we ran from October through December 2025 alongside the Gamer Motivation Profile, we invited gamers to answer additional questions after they had looked at their profile results. Some of these questions were specifically about attitudes towards Gen AI in video games.
Attitude Towards Gen AI is Very Negative & Highly Skewed
Overall, the attitude towards the use of Gen AI in video games is very negative. 85% of respondents have a below-neutral attitude towards the use of Gen AI in video games, with a highly-skewed 63% who selected the most negative response option.
Such a highly-skewed negative response is rare in the many years we’ve conducted survey research among gamers. As a point of comparison, in 2024 Q2-Q4, we collected survey data on attitudes towards a variety of game features. The chart below shows the % negative (i.e., below neutral) responses for each mentioned feature. In that survey, 79% had a negative attitude towards blockchain-based games. This helps anchor where the attitude towards Gen AI currently sits. We’ll come back to the “AI-generated quests/dialogue” feature later in this blog post since we break down the specific AI use in another survey question.
Women & Non-Binary Gamers Are More Negative Towards Gen AI
Female and non-binary gamers have a much more negative attitude towards Gen AI than male gamers do. Female and non-binary gamers are about 25-30% more likely to select the “Very Negative” option than male gamers.
Older Gamers Are More Favorable Towards Gen AI
We also found that older gamers are more favorable towards Gen AI while younger gamers are more negative. Among gamers age 13-17, only 3% have a positive (i.e., above neutral) attitude towards Gen AI. This is 7% among gamers age 18-24, and it rises to 22% among gamers age 45+. This aligns with survey data from Pew Research in terms of age trends in the broader population.
Gaming Motivations & Gen AI: Power Enhances. Story & Design Dampen.
Among the 12 motivations in our Gamer Motivation Model, we found that Power has a positive correlation (r=.15) with attitude towards Gen AI. The more a gamer cares about power progression (i.e., leveling up, upgrading gear, unlocking more powerful skills), the more positive they are towards Gen AI. Conversely, there is a negative correlation with both Story (r=-.12) and Design (r=-.12). The more a gamer cares about elaborate narratives, interesting NPC backstories, and customization, the more negative they are towards Gen AI. All other motivations had correlations < r=.10.
The more a gamer cares about storytelling and customization, the more negative they are about Gen AI in video games.
And these correlations aren’t just driven by the gender differences. For example, even within just female gamers, the correlation between Design and Gen AI is still r=-.11. And even within just male gamers, the correlation between Power and Gen AI is r=.15.
The Specific Use of Gen AI Matters
These motivation patterns align with an additional question we asked about the specific use of Gen AI in games.
Gamers were most negative towards Gen AI being used for artistic/creative purposes in games, such as using Gen AI for artwork, music/sound effects, and narrative/dialogue. This aligns with the Story and Design correlations we just saw. Gamers were more (comparatively) open to using Gen AI for dynamic difficulty adjustment (26% positive + 24% neutral). In short, attitudes towards Gen AI usage in video games become less negative as it moves away from artistic/creative features.
Gen AI Attitudes Among Gamers Have Worsened Over Time
In the earlier 2024 Q2-Q4 survey we mentioned earlier as a comparison, we had “AI-generated quests/dialogue” as an option where we saw a response of 46% negative. In the current survey, they are now 77% and 83% negative respectively. This suggests that attitudes towards Gen AI has significantly worsened over the past year among gamers.
Using AI in “Uncreative” Ways in Games
The comparatively more neutral attitude toward using Gen AI for non-creative features in games, like dynamic difficulty adjustment, hints at other, perhaps more palatable, opportunities for using AI in video games.
Over a recent lunch, Nic Ducheneaut mentioned that he was looking forward to trying out the new Europa Universalis V over the holiday break, but was wary of learning the new mechanics. We had been chatting about these Gen AI survey findings and wondered out loud how it would be a good use of Gen AI if the game asked you about your experiences with other specific 4X/Grand Strategy titles and dynamically generated a short tailored guide and tutorial for the new mechanics based on your existing knowledge–e.g., new feature X is like building wonders in Civ VI but you can pick a specific wonder variant with slightly different stats.
What Do You Think?
- Have your attitudes towards Gen AI in general and specifically in its usage in video games worsened or improved over time?
- Are there any uses of Gen AI in video games that you would be favorable toward?
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These results more or less align with how I feel about it – creative work and game balance needs to be done by people, but smart models could potentially create really interesting random events and dynamic difficulties. We already see something similar with the curated “storyteller” AI in Rimworld, although in that case they were custom-designed by the devs.
In general I’m going to prefer games without a lick of AI in them but I wouldn’t be upset if it was used for some minor dynamic stuff.
AI has a place within game design in terms of procedural map generation, NPC behaviour models and graphical assisted frame generation, but GenAI – as it is under current business models and legislation – is simply being used to bypass the normal creative process for the defining parts of game identity
There are already plenty of existing issues around the use of GenAI in general business usage – the specifics of the video game industry as a creative medium introduces further complications; game development is one of the last places we should be seeing it introduced
The GenAI use case of a dynamic tutorial is a terrible case for GenAI.
1) a tutorial is only a piece of the overall experience and needs to be crafted just like the rest of the game. handing it to genAI makes that impossible
2) genAI is generative, not diagnostic, and cannot be trusted to generate the same results twice. you would literally be slamming un-debuggable slop into them as the game’s first experience as if it were well crafted. it isn’t. that’s bad.
3) there is already a space for computer generated content, and it has a long and venerable history trying to say ‘well, people don’t mind using genAI for things that are much better solved with procgen’ is not a good argument for genAI!
whoever is doing your graph visualizations, please give them a raise their sense of color is really good
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This whole article is hilarious because its trying to pull an ounce of positivity out of a mountain of negativity. It’s abundantly clear that the overwhelming majority of participants don’t like and have increasingly disliked LLMs and their impact on videogames and society at large, but leave it to the press to spin this overwhelming response into some positive highlights.
These results are comparable to how I feel about it broadly. I must say I really hate genAI and how the new shitty shiny tools of power of corporations are pushed in the disinformation and uncreative age that is the 2020s. Machine learning has a place in our society and tech, and it already had one for a while in many cases, but current genAIs are a nightmare for so many reasons.
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40-yr-old woman, long-time gamer here (also long-time artist/art hobbyist). Personally, I love dynamic, immersive gaming experiences that stimulate my imagination, so if gen-AI can be used in ways that accomplish that, then I’m supportive of its usage. I think there are so many possibilities to expand gaming beyond what’s normally achievable for small and mid-size studios, especially for non-linear narratives that require a lot of story branching or really deep interactivity (read as: normally very long development time), which is a prospect that’s really exciting to me as a gamer. For most big studios though, I would definitely be suspicious of heavy implementation of gen-AI (particularly for art or assets), but honestly? A lot of them already struggle with creative vision and willingness to take risks anyway, so gen-AI isn’t going magically fix that for them. If anything, it’ll help them produce more of the same faster, but that’s not even really a technology problem, that’s an industry problem.
People will slowly come to accept and like it; AI is just getting started
people have moral issues with how ai models are trained on copyrighted content in order to duplicate it without consent. proliferation of ai isn’t going to make those morality concerns go away. it’s going to make them more entrenched in their position.
These results are in line with my thinking as well. The video game industry needs people, not AI gen content, logic. I want that human connection on every level, and as Grand Theft Auto Rockstar co-founder and former GTA lead writer Dan Houser says “AI is eventually going to eat itself.”
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