Why do techies love video games so much?

Is it because games offer structured systems, rules, and rewards that appeal to the logical, problem-solving mind? Is it the building and experimentation inherent in many games or the immersive narratives of story-driven games that appeal to those who enjoy imaginative exploits? Or is there a deeper motivation connected with sublimation and the creation of civilization (cf. Freud’s Civilization and It’s Discontents) that provide a feedback laden drive to reach mastery and accomplishment in speculative, alternate worlds?

Well, it’s probably all of the above and more.

But whatever the reason for the psychological affinity that tech and science-driven folks have for video games, that personal relationship neatly parallels the correspondence in the research world between the tasks of game development and the cutting edge exploration of technologies such as artificial intelligence. For every computer science paper on the arXiv – from computer vision to LLMs to personal immersion to cognitive science and general AI – there are a half dozen use cases you can name in the creation of video games. So, it is not too much to say that the future of gaming (to say nothing of much of the future of the gaming community) can be found in today’s trailblazing university AI laboratories.

This winter, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is going to take full advantage of this synergy and further its burgeoning relationship with academia by offering an Independent Activity Period (IAP) activity at MIT. This winter term activity (MIT prefers “activity” to “course”) will consist of a brief, project-oriented survey of some of the main research topics that are integral to the development of the future of gaming. Lecturers from SIE (including yours truly) as well as contributors from MIT and other universities, will discuss topics such as player immersion, persuadable chatbots and realistic NPCs, sentiment analysis, rendering, asset and game creation with Unreal Engine and the use of LLMs for agent planning and the development of game tutor agents (all in one month! Phew!). Students will also choose from a list of hackathon-style project templates (or create a project on their own) to be demo-ed on the final day of the nine lecture series. The best hackathon project (as judged by our panel of experts) will receive a brand new PS5 Pro with a suite of some great AAA games!

Our winter-term activity will be offered under the aegis of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), which SIE’s Future Technology Group recently joined as a corporate member. The lectures will be streamed and recorded for internal SIE consumption. If other universities and engineering departments are interested in hosting a similar course for their interim periods, contact Mike Stopa (michael.stopa@sony.com).