Stellar Blade lead believes AI is essential for South Korea to compete with studios in the US and China, with the government to provide financial backing to support the use of the tech

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With ongoing debates about artificial intelligence, the director of the 2024 game Stellar Blade recently explained that he sees AI as essential for South Korean game developers to stay competitive with companies in America and China. He shared this opinion at a recent conference, framing it as a matter of basic economic survival in the gaming industry.

According to GameMeca and Automaton, Hyung-tae Kim, the CEO of Shift Up and director of Stellar Blade, stated at a recent economic summit in South Korea that artificial intelligence could be crucial for the country to stay competitive with China and the United States. He also noted that a large part of Shift Up’s player base is outside of Korea, and often competes with products from China.

So, I was reading about how Shift Up, the studio behind games like Stellar Blade, works with around 150 developers per project. That’s pretty standard, but apparently, in China, teams can be huge – like 1,000 to 2,000 people working on a single game! That’s a massive difference in resources. The CEO, Kim, thinks AI is the key to leveling the playing field and letting smaller teams like theirs compete effectively.

Instead of causing job losses, AI will likely require studios to utilize all available workers alongside these new technologies, according to one expert. This idea is reinforced by South Korea’s Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Hwi-young Chae, who notes that larger companies are already developing their own AI tools, and there are initiatives planned to help smaller teams adopt AI this year.

It’s understandable why people feel this way. AI is expected to significantly simplify tasks and boost how much we get done. However, some believe these tools create low-quality work that lacks the originality of human creativity, and ultimately still requires human intervention to fix and refine.

Considering reports that EA utilizes AI throughout its operations and Activision has faced accusations of using AI-generated content, Kim’s argument that larger companies are already embracing this technology seems valid. While it’s debatable whether others should follow suit, Shift Up is currently doing so, which isn’t a positive sign for the development of Stellar Blade 2.

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2026-01-13 17:40