Square Enix to entrust 70% of quality assurance to AI

Square Enix, the software house greatly loved for its Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest series, as well as NieR and many other titles, is currently undergoing a real phase of transition. It is well known that the company is investing significant sums in the development of specific Generative AI tools to aid in video game development, although these decisions have not failed to generate perplexity among users.

In a recent presentation shown during a shareholders' meeting, the company outlined a rather interesting goal: to entrust 70% of quality assurance [QA], i.e., the testing of the finished product before its actual publication, to Artificial Intelligence by 2027. The purpose of QA is to identify bugs, glitches, and errors of all kinds so that they can be corrected before being released to the public and critics [and the public's critics].

QA is considered a kind of Cinderella in the hierarchical scale of video game development: "a dirty job that someone has to do," boring, repetitive, often including large chunks of time where nothing can be reported because, in fact, no problems are found. Nevertheless, many consider the human element, with its innumerable degrees of attention that software would not be capable of, fundamental and indispensable for proper QA work. It is therefore no coincidence that the statements have sparked various controversies in the community:

On the other hand, it is also true that AI would, on paper, be able to identify "the bulk" of errors in much less time – and at lower costs – thus from a business perspective, it certainly constitutes added value, leaving the remaining 30% of the "fine-tuning" work to human reasoning.

Square Enix in the near future

Investments in AI are not the only new developments in Square Enix's corporate policy: recently, the company recorded significant losses, as a result of which it decided to abandon its tradition of exclusivity to focus on multi-platform releases. Recently, at the Tokyo Games Show, the company presented a decidedly substantial line-up and is certainly well-established in the market.

Obviously, we cannot know if and how much these decisions will prove truly valid for the company's coffers, just as we cannot condemn the choice to entrust QA to AI a priori before seeing the results of such work with our own eyes. All that remains is to await future releases...

Square Enix in the near future

Gli investimenti sull'IA non costituiscono le uniche novità nella politica aziendale di Square Enix: recentemente la società ha registrato delle perdite notevoli in conseguenza delle quali ha deciso di abbandonare la sua tradizione di esclusività per puntare alle release multi-piattaforma. Recentemente, in occasione del Tokyo Games Show, la società ha presentato una line-up decisamente corposa ed è sicuramente ben presente sul mercato.

Ovviamente non possiamo sapere se e quanto queste decisioni si riveleranno effettivamente valide per le casse della società, così come a priori non possiamo condannare la scelta di affidare il QA all'IA prima di vedere coi nostri occhi il frutto di tale lavoro. Non ci resta che attendere le future release...