人工智能即平台（第23集）

大家好，欢迎收听GameCraft播客。我是主持人Mitch Lasky。我是Blake Robbins。本节目讲述电子游戏产业的现代发展史。第七集：作为平台的AI。

Hello, and welcome to the GameCraft podcast. I'm your host, Mitch Lasky. I'm Blake Robbins. And this is a podcast about the modern history of the video games business. Episode seven, AI as a platform.

Blake，我们上季讨论过AI，在那集开头我们开玩笑说这可能是我们录制过最不具时效性的一期，因为AI创新速度太快，很难想象我们谈论的内容一年后还有意义。本期我们会回顾那集内容，聊聊当时的观点哪些正确哪些偏差。但我觉得回溯我们如何看待AI与游戏产业的关联很有意思——毕竟AI将重塑诸多行业，游戏产业显然也在其中，但这种变革不会是单一维度的，而是会以多种不同方式展开。

Blake, so we discussed AI last season, and we teasingly said at the beginning of that episode that it was probably gonna be our least evergreen episode that we ever recorded because the pace of AI innovation was going so quickly that it was really hard to imagine that anything we talked about would be relevant a year later. We'll return to that episode later in this episode and talk a little bit about kind of, you know, what we said and what we feel like we got right or wrong in that episode. But I think it's interesting to go back and think about the ways in which we viewed AI as being relevant to the games business because, you know, again, AI is gonna be transformative of a lot of industries. It's gonna be transformative of the games industry clearly, but it's not gonna be transformative in a monotonic way. It's gonna be transformative in a variety of different ways.

没错。我觉得这期会很有趣，因为这是我们日常讨论和思考最多的话题，而其他很多话题更多是回顾性的。这个领域最能让我们发挥前瞻性思维进行推测。

Yeah. I I I I think it's this episode is gonna be a lot of fun because, look, this is the topic that you and I probably talk about the most or thinking about the most in our day to day, whereas a lot of the other topics that that we discuss is far more reflective. This is, you know, the thing that we get to speculate or think about the most as as we're forward leaning.

确实。让我们聊聊上季提出的AI影响游戏的三大方向。第一是增强现有玩法模式——情境感知帮助系统、动态玩法、超智能NPC、自适应敌人等，这些在LLM时代前的AI中已有雏形。

Absolutely. So let's let's talk about the three ways we think AI was gonna be relevant in games, and we talked about last season. So the first is enhancements to existing gameplay patterns. So, you know, context aware help systems, some dynamic gameplay, super intelligent NPCs, adaptive enemies, you know, all of these things, which we've kind of seen before in pre LLM era AI. You know?

比如牛蛙公司的《黑与白》就有自适应敌人。随着技术发展，NPC越来越智能，深度学习等技术也早已应用于游戏中的路径规划等领域。但完全可以预见，LLM革命将在现有玩法模式上催生类似的创新浪潮。

I mean, black and white from Bullfrog had adaptive enemies. And, you know, we've we've seen better and better NPCs as technology developed, and and, you know, we've seen deep learning and some of these other things applied in games before, pathing algorithms, etcetera. But it's completely conceivable that the LLM revolution will produce a sort of similar pattern of innovation in existing gameplay patterns.

对。游戏中的AI机器人或玩家角色一直存在，某种程度上游戏行业在这项技术的创新上遥遥领先。

Yeah. Yeah. And look. It's we talked about it last season, but it's AI bots or or those players in your game has has always been a thing. And games, and maybe in a lot of ways, were way further ahead on that technology or or innovation.

最新的趋势是机器人更多被用作用户留存手段。

I think the latest twist that we've seen of that is is much more of bots maybe as a way to retain you.

这是第一个方向。第二是大幅提升游戏开发、营销和管理的生产效率——我们认为这个领域存在重大创新和降本空间，比如编程辅助工具Copilot、生成式AI美术、AI辅助设计、实时运营和审核工具等。

Yeah. So that was number one. Number two on our list was really increased productivity of game development, marketing, and management. And that was an area where we really felt like there was an opportunity for significant innovation and cost reduction in the games business. You know, things like Copilot for coding, generative AI art, AI enabled design, live ops and moderation tools.

这些应用的不同形态其实已经陆续面世了。

And we're seeing aspects of these come to market in various forms really already.

确实。虽然最后我们会详细讨论，但必须说某些技术的进展速度实在惊人。

Yeah. It's it's and and we're gonna talk about this a lot more at the end, but it is pretty remarkable how far some of the stuff has gotten.

是的。最后一点，在我们当时讨论时还非常具有推测性，就是那些根本上基于AI或大语言模型（LLM）构建的游戏概念，没有这些技术它们就无法存在。这正是我们今天要讨论的第三类话题。因为在过去这一年里，我们收到了许多游戏提案，也主动发现了一些，还回顾了上季节目录制时可能遗漏的早期案例。我们整理出了一份在这方面让我们感兴趣的清单。

Yeah. And then finally, and this was very speculative at the time that we talked about it, was the idea of games that are fundamentally built on AI or really on LLMs that couldn't really exist without them. And that is the topic of our discussion today is that third category. Because in that intervening year, we've been pitched a bunch of games, and we've gone out and found some, and we've looked at some earlier ones that we may have missed when we recorded our episode last season. And we've sort of put a list together of things that were interesting to us in this regard.

对吧？我的意思是，这次我们将真正把AI作为游戏开发平台来讨论，而上季节目我们并未深入探讨这一点。

Right? I mean, we really are going to talk about AI as a platform for game development in a way that we really didn't go get into in significant depth last season.

没错。而且我认为这是所有类别中最有趣的——由于这些大语言模型的存在，世界上能出现哪些全新体验？

Yeah. And and it's it's, I think, the most interesting of all of those, which is what's the novel or net new experiences that can exist in the world because of these LLMs?

所以我们不会讨论那些'无引擎的AI游戏引擎'（暂时这么称呼）。如果你关注GDC动态，微软在这方面公布了一个项目，其电子游戏的画面是逐帧生成的，完全没有使用传统渲染引擎或输入输出管线。

So what we're not gonna talk about is the engine less AI game engines, for a lack of a better term. I don't know what to actually call these things. But if if you were paying attention around GDC, Microsoft announced a project in this regard where the frames of the video game are being generated frame by frame without really the use of a traditional rendering engine or, you know, pipeline of inputs and outputs.

对。这个演示在很多方面都令人惊叹——你会疑惑这怎么不算游戏？当我按下W键前进时，它确实在实时生成新内容。

Yeah. Yeah. And and it's an amazing demo in a lot of ways. You're like, what how is this not a game? And and when I press, you know, w and I walk forward, it is generating something new.

但这还非常早期。要我们推测其发展方向或对行业的影响，现在还为时过早。

But it is very early. It's it's you know, I think for you and I to speculate on where that goes or what that means for the industry, it's just too early.

是的。比如我们投资组合公司Descartes就在解决同类问题，他们开发出能高精度运行《我的世界》的巧妙方案。虽然这些尝试既有趣又雄心勃勃，但从商业应用角度看仍像科学实验，其实际应用前景尚不明朗。所以我们不会深究，但确实很酷。

Yeah. I mean, there's a benchmark portfolio company, Descartes, that's working on the same problem that's got a really interesting and sophisticated solution where it can play Minecraft at pretty high fidelity. But, you know, ultimately, while this stuff is kinda interesting and super ambitious and kind of it still feels a little science project y in terms of its application in the business. It's that application, I think, remains somewhat uncertain at the moment. And so as a result, I don't think we're gonna really delve too deep into it, but it's cool.

确实。这是惊人的研究，或许会催生伟大成果。但现阶段它更接近研究性质，我想这两个团队也会认同这点。

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing research, and maybe something amazing will come out of it. But it is far closer to research, and I think both of those teams would would would also say that.

不过我们会在节目尾声间接提及，因为它引发了关于AI进军游戏行业的有趣辩论，这点我们绝对要讨论。现在先转向具体案例，按我们整理的清单来聊聊这些产品。当然，作为行业观察者，我们的视野有限。

Yeah. But we will come back and talk about it sort of tangentially at the end of this episode because it came up in some interesting debates related to AI and and AI's entry into the games business that we definitely wanna discuss at the end of this episode. So we'll come back to it, but we're not gonna go into great depth about it as a platform for game development. So let's go turn and talk about some examples and really just sort of go through our list of some of these products. Obviously, you know, we're just two industry observers, and we don't have really complete view of what's going on out there.

这些都是通过提案或市场调研引起我们注意的项目，大约有十几个。我们将按它们拥抱AI作为平台的程度大致排序，但各位可能有不同偏好——比如氛围编程（vibe coding）或许比某些案例更让你感兴趣。

But these are things that have at least bubbled up to our attention that we've either been pitched or that we found out in the marketplace. And, you know, there's about a dozen of them, and and we'll go through them. They're in rough order of our opinion about how deeply they embrace AI as a platform, but your mileage may vary. And some of these you may find more interesting. Vibe coding may be more interesting to you than some of the other things we're gonna talk about.

这没问题，但这只是我们的观点。我们实际上要从一个前LLM时代的游戏《Event Zero》开始谈起。之所以选择它，是因为我们想为这次对话设定框架——因为最后我们将讨论的是基于AI平台构建的最复杂游戏之一，本质上正是这个游戏的升级版。因此，对比其前LLM版本与LLM实现版本会非常有趣。

That's fine, but this is just our opinion. And we're gonna start with a game actually from the pre LLM era called Event zero. And the reason we're doing that is because we wanna bookend this conversation because the last thing we're gonna talk about, one of the most sophisticated games that we've seen built on AI as a platform, is essentially a version of this same game. And so it's really interesting to compare the pre LLM version of it with the LLM implementation of it.

没错。你看，包括《Event Zero》在内，我们要讨论的这些游戏之所以突出，是因为它们都蕴含着某种魔力内核。接下来你我就要探讨这种被释放的魔力究竟是什么，以及它指向怎样的未来。

Yeah. Yeah. And and look, a lot of this is the the games that we're gonna talk about here, including event zero, is these are games or experiences that stood out to us because there's a kernel of of some magic. And and trying to figure out what you know, you and I are gonna talk about what is maybe the magic that's being unlocked here and where that points to in the future.

在《Event Zero》中，玩家通过废弃飞船上的终端与AI对话，试图解开飞船遭遇的谜团。这有点像早期的非AI程序，比如Mac时代的ELIZA——它具备简易对话引擎和语法解析器，能用近乎自然的语言回应用户输入。通过文本查询来破解核心谜题的设计理念如出一辙。

So in event zero, you play a player who converses with an AI really through a terminal on a derelict spaceship, and and you're trying to sort of solve the mystery of what happened to the spaceship through dialogue with the this computer. Kind of a little bit similar to the, again, pre AI programs like ELISA back on the Mac two back in the day where it it has a simple dialogue engine and a parser and can respond in near natural language to your inputs and outputs. And, again, it gives you the opportunity through text and through query to try and solve this master mystery.

是啊，即便在LLM出现之前能做出这样的游戏已经很惊人。这说明整个行业早在LLM问世前，就已经在拥抱对话树、决策树这类交互形式了。

Yeah. It's it's it's pretty amazing, like, even pre LLMs that you could you could have built that. And it speaks to, you know, sort of the the broader industry of they were embracing a lot of this, you know, conversational or decision tree or dialogue tree type stuff way before LLMs out there.

完全同意。接下来是《AI Dungeon》，这款经典文字冒险游戏延续了Infocom的风格——如果你玩过《Zork》或《Planetfall》就会熟悉这种需要学习系统如何解析语言输入的模式。比如你可以输入「向东走」「打开信箱」这样的指令。

Absolutely. The next one on our list is AI Dungeon. So AI Dungeon is a very classic text adventure game, again, sort of of the Infocom variety where if you've ever played the Zorks or the Planet Falls or whatever, you'd you're familiar with this style where you sort of have to learn how the system parses your language input and out and and turns it into output. So you could tell it to say, go east. Open the mailbox.

这类操作遵循典型的名词+动词结构。而《AI Dungeon》的创新在于将这种模式移植到了LLM的语境中。

Like, those kinds of things. It's very sort of noun verb, etcetera. And AI Dungeon really takes that and and and sort of places it into the LLM context.

我觉得《AI Dungeon》更接近老式MUD游戏——通过文字进行角色扮演冒险。但就像你说的，虽然不知道用「原始」这个词是否准确，但它的确保持着「执行动作」式的交互，比如「穿越森林」之类的指令。

Yeah. I I I think of AI Dungeon almost as closer to, like, old school muds of, like, you're you're doing this text adventure through a role playing type game, but it is very like you said, I I don't know if rudimentary is the right word, but it is like, do this. Let's walk through the woods and whatever else.

就是这个意思。

But Say that.

对，没错。

Like Yeah. Yeah.

你看，它的用户界面或对话界面虽然仍非完全自然语言，但与老式文字冒险游戏不同的是，它能根据用户选择动态生成故事——这完全突破了传统游戏依赖海量启发式决策树的框架。

Read this. Right? It's again, it's still very not noun verbi in terms of its its its user interface, its or its dialogue interface. But one of the things that it does that the old text adventures don't do is that it dynamically generates story based on user choices Exactly. Which is quite different from the way that those those games were really just massive heuristic decision trees.

是的。而且，你看，他们确实因此做对了很多地方，因为存在一个核心玩法，确实有人沉迷其中，至今仍在不断游玩，因为它有点像永无止境的对话和决策树。所以在某种程度上，它达到了《博德之门》那种复杂程度——你选择一条路径不断推进，但完全以文本形式呈现。不过围绕这些机制的部分还非常基础。

Yeah. And and and, look, they they got a lot right because of that, where there is a kernel and there is people that that are really addicted and still play this all the time because it's sort of the never ending, you know, dialogue and and decision tree. And so on some level, it's, you know, Baldur's Gate sort of level of sophistication of you you go and make a path and keep going, but all in text form. Yeah. And but it is very rudimentary around that stuff.

下一个与其说是具体游戏，不如说是一类游戏的统称，我们可以笼统地将其归类为ChatGPT冒险游戏。这类游戏中有大量相对基础的作品，它们以AI地牢模式构建在ChatGPT上，采用传统文字冒险的玩法。

The next one is really more of a category of games than a particular game, and we would just sort of broadly group them as ChatGPT adventure games, which are there's a whole bunch of, again, relatively rudimentary games in that AI dungeon mode being built on ChatGPT with the same kind of traditional text adventure mode of play.

没错。其实还有另一种与此相似的模式，比如Pocket Gems或Episode这类游戏。它们虽未使用AI或语言模型，但同样属于通过文本对话点击推进的类型。所以用'ChatGPT冒险'来定义可能更准确，不过更偏向一次性体验，没有构建永续世界的意图，属于更简单的游戏形式。

Yeah. And and and, you know, there's there's another version of this that that sort of rhymes with this world, which would be maybe the pocket gems or episode type games that are out there, which those aren't using AI or LMs, but sort of matches into this of of go through the text conversation and click through. And so, yeah, it's it's ChatGPT adventure is actually probably the right way to frame it, but far more one off, not thinking about, you know, building a a never ending experience, far more of, like, simpler type of games.

榜单上下一个游戏是《Hidden Door》。这是首个真正构建AI驱动的互动小说宇宙的游戏，你可以选择角色和核心叙事框架，然后通过对话和角色间的偶遇逐渐生成故事线。这些角色扮演叙事更接近互动小说而非传统文字冒险。

The next game on our list is hidden door. It's the first of the games on this list that really involve an AI driven interactive fiction universe where you choose characters and you choose sort of master narratives. And then through your dialogue and through interaction with other characters bump kind of bumping into each other, these sort of narratives are created. These sort of role playing narratives are created. But they're really more like interactive fiction than they are sort of the traditional text adventure.

根据我们了解的情况，它其实更像是个创作工具，让你搭建故事框架，可能更接近Wattpad——这个平台我们本期会多次提及。但更偏向同人创作方向：先完整构思故事，再体验游玩。

Yeah. And and and from what we've seen or what we know, it actually seems a lot more of, like, tooling and put together, create your story, and and maybe closer to, let's let's say, Wattpad, which is gonna platform that we'll talk about probably quite a bit in this episode. But more of the fan fiction, write this, sculpt it all out, and then play through it.

他们使用的是公共领域的故事宇宙，比如HP洛夫克拉夫特或其他作者的作品。粗略看来可能还授权了几个有趣的故事宇宙，也可能仍在公版范围，不太好判断。

Yeah. And they're using publicly available story universes, things from, you know, HP Lovecraft or from some other authors that are that are sort of out in the public domain. It looks like from a quick glance at it that they may have also licensed in couple of interesting story universes, maybe not. Maybe they are also in the public domain. Hard to tell.

但这个创意很聪明，我个人尤其欣赏它的深层形态。这种介于互动小说与游戏之间的模糊地带确实蕴含着非常有趣的可能性。

But, it is a clever idea, and I think it's one that in a deeper form, I'm actually quite partial to. And I think that it that there's something really very interesting in this interactive fiction game sort of liminal space.

完全同意。当你观察同人小说世界和Episode这类平台时，都能证明这个领域存在魔力。人们热爱这种类型，而语言模型必将使其体验提升千倍。

Yeah. I I I I completely agree. It's it's there is when you look at the the fan fiction world, when you look at the episodes of the world, those are all sort of proof points of there is magic here. People love this genre, and you can only imagine that that LMs will make that a thousand times better.

接下来又是另一个类别——我们称之为聊天伴侣。同样是互动体验，但严格来说不算游戏。我知道对很多听众来说这个区分可能无关紧要，比如Character.ai就是典型例子。

And then, again, another category comes up next on our list, and and that's what we would call chat companions. It's, again, interactive and interactive experiences, but, again, not exactly game like. Right? And so I know that that distinction may be a distinction without a difference to many of you listening, but, you know, one one example would be character.ai. Yeah.

对，这里我们宽泛地使用'伴侣'这个词。Character.ai、Talkie、Chai等都属于这类——虽然存在IP争议，但本质是与哈利·波特、德拉科等角色对话，通过预设提示词和可能的相关训练材料，实现类似发消息的互动体验。

Yeah. It's it's companions. We're gonna maybe use that word loosely here. But character.i, there's Talkie, there's Chai. There's quite a few in this category that really you're it it's there's a whole question around IP, but it it's sort of talk with Harry Potter, talk with, you know, Draco or whoever it is and a little bit of preprompting, but also probably training on on on that material and sort of talking to them as as you're texting with them.

是的。而且，你知道，我们都能想象这类东西会发展成什么样，但它实际上更接近现代色情内容，而非真正的游戏体验。

Yeah. And and, you know, we can all sort of imagine where things like that might go, but it it's really become closer to what what would be like modern pornography than than actually maybe a game experience.

没错。这很有趣。它有点像电子宠物拓麻歌子，从某种意义上说，你是在培养一种关系，而不是培育一个实体，但你是通过照顾和喂养这个实体来实现的。同时，这也让我联想到那些日本女友模拟器。

Yeah. It's interesting. It sort of has elements of Tamagotchi, right, in the sense that you're kind of, like, sort of growing a relationship as opposed to growing an entity, but you're but you're doing so through this sort of care and feeding of this a of this entity on the one hand. And it also kind of suggests to me a similarity to those Japanese girlfriend simulators

对。

Yep.

就是几十年前的那种。但奇怪的是，这次主要面向女性，而不是主导日本女友模拟器市场的御宅族男性。数据简直疯狂。

Of, you know, earlier decades. But in this case, strangely aimed at women primarily as opposed to kind of the otaku men who dominated the Japanese girlfriend simulator market. The numbers are insane.

是的。我是说，你可以看看Sensor Tower的数据，显示月活跃用户接近3000万。这还不清楚是否包括他们的网页使用量。

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, care character as, like, you know, you could look on sensor tower, and that that will tell you it's at at at close to 30,000,000 MAU. That's unclear if that's including even their their web usage.

因此我们可以推测月活跃用户超过3000万。这些人不只是偶尔发条消息或聊一次天，而是放学后连续几个小时都在上面聊天。

And so we we could assume north of 30,000,000 monthly active users, And these people aren't just using it, you know, for for one off, like, text message, one conversation. It's you know, they're going there after school and talking to them for hours on end.

是啊，非常容易上瘾。

Yeah. Very addicting.

没错。

Yeah.

所以我认为，这再次证明了一种行为模式值得游戏开发者关注，尤其是那些对这个领域感兴趣的人，因为它与创造游戏平台AI长期参与度的循环和机制高度相关。

So I think that's, again, a pattern of behavior that's really worth it for game developers who are interested in this area to pay attention to because it's highly relevant to the kinds of of loops and mechanics that are gonna work in terms of creating long term engagement for a platform AI in games.

对。顺便提一下，在这方面最疯狂或最棒的体验之一是一家叫Talkie的中国公司。它现在已从美国应用商店下架，但使用时，它会主动给你发消息。不像ChatGPT不会主动联系你，Talkie会根据对话内容通过推送通知跟进。

Yeah. There there's as a quick aside here, one of the, like, sort of craziest or best experiences on this, let's say, text companion route was a company called Talkie, which is actually based out of China. It's now removed from the The US App Store, but when you used it, they would actually proactively message you. So a lot of these, let's say, ChatGPT won't proactively message you. But Talkie would would take the context of your conversation and follow-up with you in a push notification.

比如，嘿。你还在吗？你后来有没有像你说的那样去买冰淇淋？然后，就像，那是最纯粹的一种，哇哦。就像，事情正在往这个方向发展。

Like, hey. Are you still there? Did you end up going and get ice cream like you said you were going to? And, like, that is a the one of the purest, like, oh, wow. Like, that's where this is going.

所以它非常擅长吸引你，让你回来与它互动。我认为，你知道，我们已经初步看到了这种行为。

And so it's really good at pulling, and getting you back and interacting with it. And I think, you know, we have scratched the surface of seeing that behavior.

下一个是你列出的那个。它在同一个类别里。你想稍微聊聊

The next one's one you put on the list. It's in the same category. You wanna talk a little bit

这个吗？是的。另一家公司，可以说，在用户体验的另一端，是一家叫Tollens的公司，我几乎可以形容它更接近于Tamagotchi，试图打造一个——如果皮克斯试图打造一个AI伴侣，它可能会很像Tollands，这对Tollands来说是高度赞扬。但他们那个你可以与之交谈的3D动画角色的精致度和感觉真的非常非常好。我认为围绕他们的最大问题，他们已经开始探索，是关于游戏机制会是什么样子。

about it? Yeah. So another company, let's say, sort of opposite end of the spectrum of user experience is is a company called Tollens, which I would almost describe as, like, closer to the Tamagotchi trying to build a like, if Pixar was trying to build an AI companion, it would probably look close to to To land, which is a high compliment to To land. But the polish and and and feel of their three d animated character that you talk to is really, really good. I think the the the biggest questions around for them, and and they've started to to explore it, is around what does the game mechanic look like.

这实际上超级有趣。它早期的病毒式传播迹象实际上是人们把它用作家庭作业助手，你知道，他们只是在TikTok上展示，就像，我只是和我的伙伴一起闲逛，我可以问他们，你知道，49乘以10是多少？然后，就像，它会为他们计算。所以游戏机制非常轻。你知道，他们开始思考如何构建你的Tamagotchi般的世界。

It's it's actually super interesting. The the early signs of virality around it is actually people using it as, a homework helper of you know, they're just showing on TikTok of, like, I'm just hanging out with my buddy, and I could ask them, you know, what's 49 times 10? And, like, it it will do it for them. And so very light game mechanics. You know, they're starting to think about how do you build your your, like, Tamagotchi like world.

但我真的很好奇人们会如何进一步投入其中，他们是那些至少在产品方面看起来远远领先于其他团队的团队之一。

But I'm I'm I'm really curious to see how people lean into that further, and they're one of the teams that, at least from a product perspective, seem far far ahead of others.

下一个是有点争议的一个，我认为，是Inworld，这家公司因为开发至少表面上是NPC或非玩家角色作为服务而获得了大量公关，供其他人将其融入他们的游戏中。你知道，一年前当这家公司还处于萌芽阶段时，我们稍微辩论了一下，我们还在早期观察它。我们某种程度上问了一个问题，真的有人想要与游戏中的NPC有更深的互动吗？比如，你知道，大多数人在RPG中遇到NPC的经历某种程度上是为了获取信息或物品或任务或其他什么，然后尽快离开，因为通常这些互动要么非常尴尬、痛苦，要么就是单调乏味。是的。

Next is a somewhat controversial one, I think, which is Inworld, a company that's gotten a lot of PR for its development of, at least on the surface, NPCs or non player characters as a service for other people to incorporate into their games. And, you know, we debated a little bit a year ago when this company was still embryonic, and we we still we were taking an early look at it. We sort of asked the question, do does anyone really want deeper interactions with NPCs and games? Like, you know, most people's experience in RPGs of encountering NPCs is sort of to get the nugget of information or the item or whatever or the quest or whatever it is and move on as fast as possible because, typically, those interactions are either extraordinarily, embarrassingly, painfully, like, awkward, or they're just, like, monotonous. Yep.

所以我认为，你知道，我和很多人谈过这个，他们某种程度上觉得，为什么有人想与真正智能的NPC互动？我真的不想在与NPC互动时有情感体验。我只想要下一个任务的钥匙。也就是说，我认为值得思考的是，这里是否有更深层次的东西，可能更像Character.ai或Tollens，或者可能是成年人的Tollens，他们可以潜在地利用他们的技术作为构建交互体验的平台，这些体验不是现有的游戏模式。是的。

And so I think, you know, a lot of people that I've talked to about it are sort of like, why would anyone want to interact with really intelligent NPCs? I don't really wanna have an emotional experience interacting with an NPC. I just want the key to the next quest. That said, I think it's worth thinking about whether or not there is something deeper here that could look more like a Character dot a I or a Tollens, but but or Tollens for adults perhaps, where they could potentially use their technology essentially as a platform for building interactive experiences that aren't existing gameplay patterns. Yeah.

在这方面，我认为它可能比他们一年前推销的NPC即服务的氛围要有趣得多。

And in that regard, I think it could be much more interesting than the than the NPC as a service vibe that they're that that they were pitching a year ago.

是的。我想我想这是对的。我想如果这最终成为巨大的成功，那是因为他们真正投入了，可以说，这些游戏可以演变成的更接近AI原生版本，或者说是支持很多这些东西的引擎或后端。我想你是绝对正确的。关于什么是AI NPC，我的思维总是会想到，那取决于GTA是否会输掉这场战斗。

Yeah. I think I I think that's right. I think it's if if if this ends up being a massive success, I think it's because they really lean into, let's say, the AI native version of of what these games can evolve and become closer to, let's say, the engine or or the back end that are that are powering a lot of these things. I think it's you're you're absolutely right. What the, you know, the flat of what is an AI MPC, my mind just always goes to, like, that's up to GTA to lose that battle.

你知道吗？就像，长期来看，输掉这场竞争的是《模拟人生》这类游戏。

You know? Like, it's it's up to those games, you know, The Sims to lose that battle long term.

接下来这款我们俩都很喜欢的游戏叫《身份》。它是款手游，和我们之前讨论过的故事宇宙类游戏类似——包括已提及和待提及的——你需要先选择想进入的故事宇宙，再选定扮演角色。进入后，游戏会营造出一种近乎庄严的沉浸感（不是形容词意义上的庄严），类似EA在2001年推出的那款会通过传真（毕竟当年传真还很流行）、邮件等方式与现实世界联动的游戏。

Next is one that we both, I think, have a lot of fondness for, and that is a game called Status. It's a mobile game. And, again, kind of similar to some of the other ones that we've talked about, like the story universe games we that that that we've talked about and that we will talk about, it has a sort of pick your story universe that you wanna enter, pick a character that you wanna play in that universe. And then once you're in, it has almost a kind of majestic like feel, not majestic in the adjectival sense, but in the sense of the game that EA put out back in 2001 where it sort of pinged you in the real world. Like, it sent you faxes because faxes were a thing in 2,001, and it sent you email and other things like that.

它曾模糊了虚拟与现实的边界。而《身份》将这种宇宙观约束在游戏内，不会渗入你的日常社交媒体（那样会很诡异），但在游戏世界里复刻了社交媒体的功能。你就像游戏中的网红般存在，通过行动提升地位并解锁新冒险。这个设计相当出色。

It sort of seeped into the real world. Here, it takes that universe and constrains it within the game itself so it doesn't bleed out of the game into your normal social media, which would be creepy. But it does provide analogs for those social media within the game world, and you do things in the game. You you sort of almost exist like an influencer in some ways inside of the game, and you gain status in the world and and additional adventures as a result. And it's done quite well.

是啊。本质上它像是启动了粉丝小说版的推特——比如选择哈利波特宇宙的推特，你作为零关注的新人，会看到哈利、邓布利多等角色发推。理论上你也能发推吸引关注，但游戏还精心设计了渐进式剧情，比如今天的新生入学引导。

Yeah. I mean, look. It's it's a the the core experience is sort of boot up a a fan fiction specific version of Twitter. So choose your Harry Potter universe of of of Twitter, and you start with your zero followers as a newbie in this this universe, and you see Harry Potter and and Dumbledore and, you know, so forth tweeting. You could tweet in theory in that world and and try and get attention, But it also puts you at a really nice progressive storyline of, you know, today's freshman orientation.

你要发推吗？有互动吗？遇到那些事件了吗？这些设计如此周到，让人不得不赞叹：哇，这背后确实有非常有趣的核心理念。

Do you wanna tweet, or did you interact? Did you run into those things? And it's really thoughtful and and executed in a way that it's hard not to appreciate or or look at and be like, wow. There is something really interesting underlying all of this.

没错。我们最近联系了创始人，她提到目前月活用户大概有50万？

Yeah. We caught up with the founder recently, and I think she told us that she was at, what, a half a million MAU?

我觉得现在应该早超过百万月活了。

I I I think they're well past a million monthly actives at this point.

所以已经开始盈利了。

So It's monetizing.

对，完全靠自然增长，纯口碑传播。

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and completely organic. You know, it's it's all word-of-mouth.

这些玩家渴望沉浸在自己喜欢的同人世界里——此前你只能在Wattpad上阅读这类内容，但《身份》实现了完全沉浸式的多人互动体验。相比之下，我们提到的其他游戏比如AI Dungeon就没这么强的多人社交属性。

And all of these people who really just want to live in their fan fiction type world or spend more time in their fan fiction type world, you don't really get to do that. You know, up until this point, it's go on Wattpad and read those things. But this is fully immersed and in and almost in a multiplayer context where let let's say some of the others that we mentioned are are, you know, an AI dungeon doesn't feel as multiplayer as this.

非常有趣。非常有趣。非常有创新性。

Very interesting. Very interesting. Very innovative.

没错。我们应该讨论的是一家名为SuckUp的公司，其母公司或实际公司名称是Proxima。我认识这位创始人有一段时间了，他们的产品经历了多次迭代。我认为他们实际上是首批真正尝试构建3D世界的公司之一，在那里你可以与我们之前讨论的这些AI NPC互动，并将AI NPC作为核心故事情节或主要目标。

Yeah. And the the one that that, you know, we should talk about is a company called SuckUp, which is actually a startup the parent company or the real company name is is Proxima. And I I've known this founder for a bit, and they've they've gone through quite a few evolutions of of what they've built. And I would say they're actually one of the first real attempts at building a, like, three d world where you can go and interact with these AI NPCs that that we were talking about before. But using the AI NPCs as a, like, core storyline or the the core objective.

这款名为《Suck Up》的游戏让你扮演一个吸血鬼，试图说服人们让你进入他们的房子。你走进这些房子，敲门，而那些AI NPC有各自的背景故事或怪癖需要你应对。这有点像即兴表演的版本——或许在这个背景下我们更该思考的是，这些平台或AI非常擅长让你做出不自然的行为，或是进行一些你我纯粹为了乐趣绝不会做的事。我认为《Suck Up》取得商业成功很大程度上是因为它是一款极佳的直播游戏，让人感叹'这种有趣的怪事我根本想不到会发生'。当然，游戏里确实存在目标。

So this game suck up is you actually are playing as a vampire and trying to convince people to let you into their house. You walk into these houses, you knock on the doors, and and those, you know, AI MPCs sort of have their own backstories or their own quirks that you're trying to navigate. And it sort of is is like a version of improv, and and and that's a maybe broader theme that we we should be just thinking about within this context is turns out that these platforms or or AI is really good at getting you to just be unnatural or or perform in in a way that maybe you and I would never do just for fun. And I think Suck Up is had a lot of commercial success purely off of it being such a great streaming game on some level of, oh, this is just a fun quirk that I would have never thought would have happened. And and, you know, obviously, there there is an objective.

所以真的要称赞他们。我认为这是第一波所谓的3D角色AI类体验。

So, you know, really kudos to them. I think it's it's sort of the first wave of, let's call it, three d character AI type experiences, though.

我们清单上的下两个项目有点延续这个方向，对吧？但它们更注重故事性。它们将3D视觉效果与我们早前讨论的互动小说元素融合在一起。第一个是名为Wenere（w h e n e r e）的公司。

The next two on our list kinda carry on in that vein a little bit. Right? But they're more story driven. They they they sort of meld that three d visual with the more interactive fiction component that we talked about earlier. The first is a company called Wenere, w h e n e r e.

从我们了解的情况看，它本质上像是一个通过脚本构建工具生成的3D故事视频。这样描述准确吗？是的。

It's it looks essentially from from what we can tell to be a three d story video that's being generated from kind of a script construction set. Does that makes is that set? Yeah.

对。比如选择你想要录制的房间，给它大致剧本让它演绎。或许可以最简洁地描述为——就像小时候玩娃娃屋的进化虚拟版。

Yeah. Like, I you know, choose what room you want this to be recorded from and give it the rough script that you want to play out. And and maybe, you know, it's it's the cleanest way to describe it, like an evolved version of, like, playing doll or with a playhouse and, you know, as as a kid. It's a virtual version

没错。有点像电影预演的有趣版本，基本上能把剧本转化成动画。看起来相当聪明，但从网上展示的内容来看有点平淡。

of it. Yeah. Sort of a a more fun version of of pre visualization in in movies, basically, where you could turn a script into into into animation. It it seems reasonably clever. It seems a bit flat in in terms of the what is available to look at online.

看起来并不十分吸引人去玩，没有什么特别酷的地方。它一个有趣的怪癖是科幻作家尼尔·斯蒂芬森似乎参与其中，这对很多人来说很有吸引力。不过我想提醒大家，尼尔·斯蒂芬森也曾是Magic Leap的首席未来学家，结果并不理想。所以不确定他的参与有多大分量，但这确实耐人寻味。

Wouldn't didn't look extremely inviting to play. There wasn't wasn't anything particularly kinda cool about it. One of the interesting quirks of it is that the science fiction author Neal Stephenson appears to be involved in it, which for, I think, many people is intriguing. I think I would remind people that Neal Stephenson was also the chief futurist at Magic Leap, and that didn't end up going that well. So, not entirely sure that his involvement holds that much water, but it is it is curious and it is interesting.

是的。我认为这其中确实存在非常有趣的行为内核和发展方向。但从网站展示来看，执行层面可能没有内核本身那么清晰。

Yeah. I I think it again, it's a I think there is a kernel of something that is very interesting there as a behavior and where things are going. From what we could see on the site, I think the execution is is is not as clear as maybe the kernel itself.

一个非常相似但更具游戏感和吸引力的创意是一款名为《仲夏节》的游戏。这家公司的CEO杰克·所罗门是位知名游戏设计师，曾与席德·梅尔合作，负责《幽浮》系列重启。他是个非常有趣的人物。这款游戏被定位为《模拟人生》遇上《楚门的世界》的混合体。

A very similar idea, but one that feels way more game like and inviting is a game called Midsommar. It's a company the CEO of which is, Jake Solomon, very well known game designer who'd worked with Sid Meier, did the XCOM reboot. Really, really interesting character. It's kind of like a I guess it's pitched as sort of a Sims meets the Truman show.

对，对。本质上你是在玩一个生活模拟游戏，由你选择整体剧情走向，你的角色更像是故事导演。其实可以理解为选择你想创作的一集或一个系列。

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're you're basically doing a life sim where where you choose the overall storyline, and your role is almost director of that storyline. So, actually, think of it more as choosing an episode or or a series that you wanna create.

我们不妨虚构个场景：你可以创建个肥皂剧框架，有三四个角色，你担任导演。剧情会动态展开，你提供大致骨架，以导演视角观察，然后选择是要制造冲突、转向爱情线还是引发争吵等等。游戏完成度很高，画面...

So let's just play a fictional version of this, but it it's you can create a an overarching you wanna you wanna create a soap opera with the re these three, four or three or four characters, and you're sort of directing it. You know, it's playing out a little bit dynamically. You give it to very rough bones. You're watching it as the director, and then you're choosing what what you want to do to maybe disrupt it or or make it spin off into a love story or cause a fight or whatever it is. And it's really well done from a polish and, like, just looks

非常奇特。其视觉表现相比Wenner完全是另一个层级。我特别喜欢这种先选择节目类型和角色，赋予背景后角色半自主运作的设定。某种程度上这像是元指令的运用。

really strange. The look and feel of it is is is of another level compared to, like, Wenner. And I really like this idea of sort of picking the genre of the show and then picking the characters, and then the characters are kind of semi autonomous after you've given them a bit of a backstory. So in some ways, it's sort of, like, meta prompting.

100%认同。

100%.

确实非常非常有趣。

Like, very, very interesting.

没错。想象下你还能衍生支线剧情——那些随机出现的配角都被设计得很用心。我之前和杰克聊过，这个模式完全可以套用真人秀框架，比如打造自己的《单身汉》版本：创建角色后与30个NPC竞争，围观各种抓马剧情。

Yeah. And and, look, you you can imagine you create offshoots of those shows because of the random character on the side, and they're very, very thoughtful about it. And and, you know, you and I were talking about it before, and I've and I've told Jake this. And and, you know, there's some version of this which is really fun, which is closer to, like, play the reality TV show version of, you know, play the bachelor. And and that's a that's a fun version where you create your own character, and you're trying to play through it and watch all the drama with 30 NPCs and that you're trying to compete for for the love list.

可能我有偏见，但像杰克这样的资深游戏设计师让人放心。他深谙游戏制作之道，合作伙伴还是前《模拟人生》团队成员。

And maybe my bias as well, but I feel comfortable in the hands of a veteran game designer like Jake as well. Right? Like like, this person knows how to make games, and his his partner in this endeavor is a former Sims team member.

确实。他们绝对能交付成品，这点毋庸置疑。探索这个新领域会很有意思。

Yeah. Yeah. And and and there's no doubt that they're gonna ship it. You know, there there there's no question around that. And I think it's gonna be really fun to see sort of the this new white space.

我认为这是最具潜力的发展方向之一，某种程度上开启了3D同人创作的新可能。

And and and, you know, I'd I'd say this is one of the more compelling openings of of where things can go and unlocking three d fan fiction on on some level.

接下来是一个庞大的类别，我认为值得我们俩稍微讨论一下，那就是关于游戏氛围编码（vibe coding）的整体概念。是的，没错。你能给我们简单介绍一下这个概念是如何兴起的吗？

Next is a vast category, and I think worth a little bit of discussion from from the two of us, and that is the whole idea of vibe coding, vibe coding of games. Yes. Yes. You wanna give us a little kind of brief history of of how this popped onto the scene?

哦，天哪。其实这源于安德烈·卡帕西（Andre Karpathy），他是OpenAI的核心研究员和高管，如今更是一位拥有YouTube频道的公众人物，思维极其敏锐。他谈到自己如何创造了'氛围编码'这个术语——基本上就是直接进入ChatGPT或Cursor这类工具，告诉它们我想构建什么，然后看看输出的结果。这完全是氛围编码，因为你不需要过多考虑结构或编程语言之类的东西。

Oh, man. Well, they you know, really, this is this this stem from Andre Karpathy, who who is a really key researcher and executive at OpenAI and then these days is is much more of a public figure who has a YouTube channel and and just great, great mind. But he he talks about how he sort of coined this term vibe coding, which was I sort of just like going into ChatGPT or or Cursor or one of these things and tell them what I wanna build and and see what comes out the other end. And that is truly vibe coding because you're not you're not thinking too much about structure. You're not thinking about programming language, any of that stuff.

事实证明，游戏——比如你我熟知的HTML5网页游戏——正是氛围编码的绝佳产物。

It turns out that games and, you know, let's say, what what you and I would think of is, like, HTML five web games were really great outcomes of of vibe coding. Yeah. I mean,

我想最早著名的例子大概是那个飞行模拟器。

I think the famous first example was sort of the flight simulator.

没错！就像直接说'做个3D飞行模拟器看看效果'，结果居然还不错，接近我们当年在addictinggames.com或Congregate上玩的游戏水平。但它就这样实现了。

Yeah. Exactly. Like, make a make a three d flight simulator and see what happens. And turns out, like, pretty good, you know, closer to, you know, the games that you and I would have played on on, you know, addictinggames.com or congregate back in the day. But they're there, and and you're able to do it.

他当时描述的叙事非常引人入胜：先尝试某个指令，观察结果；然后调整提示词，添加新内容；通过这种反复调整和功能叠加，你能看到游戏逐步进化的全过程。这简直是氛围编码概念的完美演示。

And it was a really compelling kind of narrative that he sort of went through where he was like, first, I did this, and then you sort of see the result. And then it's like, then I added I changed the prompt to this and added this. And then you kind of see the evolution of the game through this kind of reprompting Yep. And the addition of addition of features, etcetera, etcetera. And it it it was a really sort of wonderful walkthrough of the whole concept of vibe coding.

是啊。要知道那个叫Peter的家伙（推特账号LevelsIO）更神奇——网友会@他说'能加个疯狂直升机吗？'，他二十分钟就能用提示词实现，整个过程特别有趣。

Yeah. And look. It was I mean, that that's a a guy named Peter. His his Twitter is is Levels IO, and he it's pretty amazing. You know, people would tweet at him being like, hey.

我个人当时的体会是——现在依然适用——那个飞行模拟器的成功，其实更多归功于他的传播力，而非...

Like, can you add a, you know, I don't know, a crazy helicopter? And he'd be like, I don't know. Let's try it. And, like, he'd add it, you know, within twenty minutes because he would just go and prompt it. And so really fun experience.

技术本身。毕竟如果没有传播，就像森林里倒下的树，根本没人会听见。

You know, my my own takeaway of that in in that moment in time, and and we're still in it, but the success of that flight simulator, I think, was actually far more of his distribution Right. Than than the actual, like Yeah.

没错。要是没传播开，根本不会有人知道这回事，对吧？

Yeah. No. No. If he if that had just happened, nobody would ever I mean, a tree falling in the woods, no one would have ever heard it fall. Right?

我是说没错。但这个人曾在推特或其他平台拥有百万粉丝，他确实有一套绝佳的方式来传播信息。尽管如此，我认为所谓的'氛围编程'运动——如果可以用这个词概括的话——值得放在更宏观的框架里思考。对我而言，它积极的一面在于，这感觉像是我们第一季《乐趣的演算》那集讨论过的北欧演示场景的有机版本。

I mean Yes. But he had this person had a million followers on Twitter or whatever, and it's like like he had a he had a great way to get that to get the word out. Notwithstanding, I think, you know, the vibe coding movement to the extent one can put that moniker on it, I think it's worth thinking about kind of in the broader scheme of things. I think on the like, for me, it's sort of the positive aspect of it. Obviously, it it kinda feels sort of like a an organic version of the Nordic demo scene that we talked about in the calculus of fun episode back in season one.

我强烈建议没听过那期节目的听众去补课。两千年代初的北欧演示场景是个了不起的社区项目，融合了音乐、游戏和互动体验。现在的氛围编程感觉非常相似——高度民主化、内容短小精悍、重点展示工具的可能性。这与演示场景的精神目标高度契合，我认为这是非常积极的。

And I I encourage you to go back if you haven't listened to that episode. The Nordic demo scene of the early two thousands was a remarkable community project of kind of music and games and interactive experiences. And this kind of feels similar, kind of, like, very democratized, very short form, very much about kind of, like, showing what you could do with the tools. And that's, again, very, very sympodical with the goals and and and the vibe of the demo scene. So I think that's kind of very much a positive.

另外，关于模改这个概念——拿别人的作品添加些内容再转化它——显然氛围编程也具备这些积极元素。

And, you know, the the the whole idea of of kind of modding Yes. You know, of just sort of taking someone else's work and adding a little bit to it and seeing what you can transform it into, etcetera. Obviously, this whole vibe coding thing has some elements of that as well, which I think are quite positive.

没错。要知道现在是最糟糕的阶段了。我常提醒自己：既然浏览器里已经能运行画质堪比2005-2010年水平的飞行模拟游戏，谁知道五年后能发展到什么程度？完全可以想象会出现专注于模改、重新提示或混音的应用，既作为游戏发现平台，又能让用户添加自己的创意。

Yeah. And and and look, this is the worst it's ever gonna be. It's it's the thing that I sort of try and always remind myself of, like, if you're already getting games that look like, I don't know, 02/2005, 02/2010, you know, flight simulator games on in your browser And these models, you know, who knows where this can be in five years? And so I think there's a world, you know, really leaning into more of the modding and and reprompting or remixing all of that. You could you could certainly imagine a world where where someone builds an application that's around that, which is sort of become the discovery layer of the games, but also then make your own twist.

比如现在完全能做出麦当劳版的《Flappy Bird》。

And so if you wanna make Flappy Bird but, you know, McDonald's version, you could totally imagine that being done today.

是的。但那些对氛围编程过度狂热的人需要保持清醒。这是当下常见的网络现象——就像Web3早期人人都说'整个互联网将被Web3改造'那样。

Yeah. Now, you know, again, it's worth remembering to those who are kind of getting out over their skis a bit on this vibe coding thing. And, you know, we see this. This is a common Internet phenomenon these days. We saw the same thing happen with Web three where it was like, or in the early days, everybody was like, oh, the whole Internet is gonna be transformed by Web three.

极端主义者总会抛出荒谬言论。我听到有人说'游戏公司将不复存在，因为人人都在氛围编程'，这纯属无稽之谈。规模庞大的演示场景也只孕育了几十家公司，其中少数达到规模。

And, you know, they're the like, the, you know, the maximalists kinda come in with their absurdity. And I think I've heard some similar stuff with regard to this game vibe coding where people are like, oh, you know, game companies won't exist anymore because everybody will just be vibe coding. And it's like, that's nonsense. Look. The demo scene, which was this vast and rich sort of programmer driven environment, probably produced a couple of dozen companies, a half dozen of which got to scale.

对吧？当前游戏市场已经饱和，业余开发者制作的数百万游戏很难获得分发渠道。但真正的人才从这个场景中脱颖而出的可能性确实存在，值得我们关注。

Yep. Right? And, you know, we're currently in an environment where we probably already have too many games. So the idea that there's gonna be distribution for millions more games created by amateurs is very unlikely. But the idea of some real talents being developed and bubbling up out of the scene is is quite viable, and I think something that we should be on the watch out for.

没错。就像Steam去年新增的19000款游戏，绝大多数无人问津。就算每天新增百万游戏也改变不了现状。不过正如本季首期所说，这里确实存在技术创新——

Yeah. Yeah. We we've talked about, you know, Steam, you know, where they added 19,000 games last year, and and and vast majority of those got no no downloads or plays. And so in a world where millions are added, you know, every day, I don't I don't know if that actually changes much or or solves anything. I do think there's a you know, it's taking it full circle of episode one of this season of there is a technology innovation happening here.

比如氛围编程确实是技术革新，但核心仍是分发渠道。要想成功，要么有人为此打造优质平台，要么现有平台全力拥抱它。

You know, specifically, let's say, vibe coding is is a real technology innovation, but it all comes back to distribution. And and so if this is going to work and play out, then we're likely gonna see someone build a great platform around this or an existing platform really lean into it.

是的，我同意这一点。我认为不是每个人都有百万推特粉丝可以分享他们的收获。还有一些新兴领域我觉得非常有趣。我们讨论过互动小说这个概念，但我认为这个领域值得密切关注。因为在游戏之外，你我花了很多时间研究像Wattpad这样的平台。

Yeah. I agree with that. I think not everybody has a million Twitter followers who they can they can release their gains to. There's some other emerging categories that I think are really fascinating. We've talked kind of around this idea of interactive fiction, but I think it's a space that if that I'm watching very closely because, you know, we've outside of games, you and I have spent a bunch of time looking at things like Wattpad Yep.

以及其他类型的同人小说环境。这些平台确实产生了一些非常有趣的作品，它们极具相关性、粘性和成瘾性。人工智能与互动小说世界的结合会非常有意思。我正在密切关注这个领域，因为那里蕴藏着巨大的潜在机会。

And other kind of fan fiction environments. And the those kinds of things have really produced some very interesting some very interesting work, and they're very relevant and very sticky and addictive. And AI could be very interesting as it interacts with that world of interactive fiction. And I'm watching it very, very closely because I think there's enormous potential opportunities there.

没错。我觉得这些领域历史上看起来更边缘化，像是互联网的角落或小众社区。但人工智能在多个方面将其向前推进了百万倍。关键就在于它让这些内容更易获取、更有趣，而不仅仅是阅读静态文本。我完全赞同你的观点。

Yeah. I think, you know, these areas historically have looked way more fringe or on the edge of the Internet and niche community type stuff. But AI, in a lot of ways, propels that a million times more forward. And and that's that's really the key here is makes it more accessible, maybe makes it more fun versus, you know, just reading a static text. So I I I couldn't agree more.

我认为我们正处于见证这些发展的最早阶段。像Status这样的平台可能是最纯粹的形式，证明这个领域确实存在真实需求。

I think we're we're in the earliest stages of seeing that stuff play out. And, looks, things like status are are maybe the purest form of there's real appetite for this space.

完全正确。与互动叙事和广义互动小说框架密切相关的另一个概念是AI地下城主。像《龙与地下城》这类我们熟知的桌游，很大程度上受限于城主的质量，对吧？

Absolutely. I I the other thing that's quite closely related to this idea of interactive narrative is and interactive fiction frameworks broadly is this idea of AI dungeon masters. Right? It just seems very likely that these tabletop games that we know and love, like Dungeons and Dragons, etcetera, are constrained in many ways by the quality of dungeon mastering. Right?

因为百分之百需要一个能把故事串联起来的讲述者。如果你看过《Critical Role》节目，或者听过《Scriptnotes》播客里《最后生还者》制作人克雷格·麦辛和约翰·奥古斯特谈论他们玩《龙与地下城》的经历——这些人都是职业故事创作者，他们的地下城主持水平自然非常高。

Because you you 100%. You really need a storyteller who's kind of tying it all together. And if you've ever watched, you know, the critical roles or, you listen to the script notes podcast and hear, the great Craig Mazin, showrunner of the last of us, and John August talk about their Dungeons and Dragons playing. Like, you know, these guys are professional storytellers, and, you know, that that they they write stories for a living. And so their Dungeons and Dragons dungeon mastering is at a very, very, very high level.

而对大多数人来说，游戏体验往往受限于故事讲述的质量。如果人工智能能动态发展剧情，学习桌上玩家的偏好并定制故事，这将是个富矿。据可靠消息，孩之宝和海岸巫师公司已经在进行相关实验，虽然尚未推出成熟产品。

Whereas, you know, for most people, I think that their experience is gonna be somewhat limited by the quality of that storytelling. And to the extent that it could be enhanced by an artificial intelligence that could dynamically develop story, could learn the proclivities of the players around the table and tailor stories to them, I think it's a very rich vein to mine. And I know Hasbro in Wizards of the Coast have been working on something like it. I have it on pretty good authority that they've that they've made some experiments in in in that regard. I don't think they've gotten to anything that's really releasable.

这个领域我依然密切关注，因为它可能催生出具有广泛普适性的产品。

But, again, it's a space that I'm watching pretty closely because I think that there's a broadly accessible product that could arise from from from that area.

我完全同意。你说得千真万确，优秀的地下城主塑造了整个体验，确保玩家参与度。而糟糕的城主会让游戏分崩离析，大家就不再每周参与了。更有趣的是，这种模式可能不仅适用于《龙与地下城》。

I couldn't agree more. I think it's it's it's one where you're you're 1000% right that a great dungeon master sort of creates the entire experience and make sure that people are involved. And with a bad dungeon master, it falls apart. You stop going every week or you stop doing that. And so it's it's interesting to think about how that might apply outside of even just, let's say, D and D.

你可以想象它成为扑克或二十一点等游戏的完美主持人。我们正处于这个趋势的极早期，但语音AI或纯语音体验已经如此出色，等待时间也大幅缩短，不难预见这就是未来的发展方向。

It's you you could imagine it's a great host for poker or or blackjack or whatever that might be. And so we're in we're we're so early in this trend, but I think, you know, voice AI or or voice as an experience even without a three d character has gotten so good, and and the wait and see has gotten so good that it's not hard to imagine that's where this plays out to.

说到这个，让我们来看看清单上的最后一款游戏，从很多方面来说，这是我所接触过的游戏中最引人入胜的一款，我想你也会有同感。

And speaking of that, let's get to the last game on our list, which in many ways is kind of the most compelling of these that I've had any interaction with, and and and I think you'd feel the same way about it.

没错。听着，有家公司叫Anutacon（拼写a-n-u-t-t-a-c-o-n），是由米哈游的前CEO创立的——我们在中国特辑里多次提到过米哈游，最出名的可能是《原神》。他于2023年卸任，并移居北美创办了这家公司。现在我们终于能看到他在忙什么项目了。

Yeah. Yeah. Look, there there's there's a company called Anutacon, a n u t t a c o n, and that's that's started by the former CEO of Mihoyo, which we've talked about a bunch in in the China episode, best known for maybe Genshin Impact. He stepped down in in 2023 and actually moved to North America to start this company. And we're finally starting to see what what what he's working on.

我和Mitch都试玩了测试版。这款游戏叫《星语低喃》。

Mitch and I both have played around with the test flight of it. It's a game called Whispers From The Star. And

太惊艳了。直说吧，游戏里你要互动的主角是个太空女性——一个被困在太空发出求救信号、请求你帮助的宇航员。

It's remarkable. Yeah. Is. It's say it right up front. It's like you've got the you've got a a a character that you're interacting with that's essentially a space woman, a woman marooned in space who has sent out a distress message and is asking for your help.

玩法有点像我们最开始讨论的《事件零》，你需要通过互动让她讲述故事，并通过帮她解决宇航生涯中遇到的难题来推动冒险。游戏有些绝妙的细节：首先这个角色本身就令人惊叹。

And you have to kind of similar to, you know, what we talked about at the very beginning with event zero, you have to interact with her to get the story out of her and help her sort of proceed on her adventure by helping her solve these problems that she encounters in her, you know, in her her life as a marooned astronaut. And it has some great, like, touches. First of all, the character's incredible.

对吧？3D质感、配音这些全是满分水准。

Right? Yeah. I mean, the three d quality, like, voice, all of that stuff is 10 out of 10.

满分10分。他们做了个我特别爱的设计——把技术限制转化为游戏特色。就像早年移动端因网络延迟高达两三秒，我们不得不用玩法来掩盖延迟。

10 out of 10. And the they do this thing that I love, which is I love when they turn constraints in the technology into features of the gameplay. Right? Like, we used to try and do this all the time in mobile because we used to have, you know, just like ridiculous Internet latencies, like two, three second latencies in the early days of, you know, of send and return. And so we had to mask those latencies in ways with gameplay.

第一人称射击游戏从局域网转向互联网时也这样，用溅射伤害来掩盖实体同步不精确的问题。而这款游戏用光速传输延迟作为角色实时反馈的机制，等待消息往返的过程反而营造出期待感。

Right? You saw it again in the early days of first person shooters when they moved from lands to wide area networks like the Internet where they use things like splash damage to hide the fact that they couldn't precisely synchronize entities in the world so they would do probabilistic damage. And, again, a very clever way of sort of disguising a limitation in the technology with a gameplay feature. And in this case, they use the transmission lag of light speed between you and the character as a way for the character to formulate their response in what feels like real time. And, actually, as you wait for the mission the the message to be sent and wait for the return, it builds even a sense of anticipation.

这几乎赋予了游戏情感维度，简直绝妙。

So there's almost an emotional quality to it. It's just brilliant.

确实如此。正如你所说，他们完美利用了这种限制。等游戏上线或你能参加测试时就会体验到——你甚至可以对角色说‘转过身来’。

Yeah. It is. It's exactly what you said of they they just crafted it around this constraint. And, look, you know, a great example, and and when it comes out or if you can ever get on the test flight, like, you'll you'll experience this. You can quite literally say, like, turn around to this character.

比如，你有没有去那边找到那个东西？然后，它就会以一种你无法预料的方式离开屏幕，完全没有限制。懂我意思吗？很难找到这种技术的边界在哪里。

Like, did you go and find that thing over there? And, like, it will walk off screen in a way that you you just you there's no limits. You know? It's hard to find the limits of of what this can do.

目前我们只玩了大概不到一小时的游戏内容。但至少从我们看到的来看，这项技术确实展现出了作为平台的潜力，能实现我们前所未见的游戏体验。

Now we've only played obviously for, you know, like, not like an hour of gameplay, essentially. Like but but at least what we've seen really shows the promise of this technology as a platform to enable a kind of gameplay we've never seen before.

没错。而且在很多方面，你可以想象在这个旅程中，你与这个角色建立的联系会比用手柄玩静态游戏时深厚十倍甚至百倍。

Yeah. And and and in many ways, you can imagine the connection that you will form with this character being 10 to a 100 times deeper over that journey than what it would have been if I was just playing a static with a controller.

确实。非常酷，有机会值得一试。在所有我们考察过的将AI作为游戏平台的应用中，这确实是最有趣也最成熟的。

Yeah. For sure. Very cool and worth checking out if you have a chance. And and that's really the the again, of of all the things we've looked at that's utilizing AI as a platform platform for gaming, it's it's the most interesting and the most polished.

对。而且我觉得这不是巧合，更多是东方开发者在这方面推动边界。也许我们应该更广泛地讨论这个话题，但他们全面拥抱AI作为媒介的做法确实令人印象深刻，而传统游戏行业大多还没做到这点。

Yeah. And and and, look, I don't think it's a coincidence that it is, you know, more of a an eastern developer who's pushing the edge on this. And and, you know, maybe that's something we should just talk about more broadly, but it's it's really impressive to see them come over and and and fully embrace AI as a medium, whereas I think most of the the traditional gaming industry hasn't really done that.

这对我来说是个敏感话题。如果你不介意，我想稍微展开说说。从我参与的八十年代末九十年代初至今约三十五年的游戏行业史来看，游戏业始终是两种不同脉络的碰撞与融合。

Yeah. It's a bit of a hot button issue for me. And and and if you'll if you'll indulge me, I'm gonna go on a little bit of a rant here. Sure. You know, throughout the history of at least the video game business that I participated in from the late eighties, early nineties to the present, so the last, you know, thirty, thirty five years, The games business has always been kind of a collision or amalgamation of really two different strands.

一方面有类似电影产业的模式——作为视觉娱乐媒介需要较高预算，属于影视类比的游戏；另一方面则是将游戏视为技术和软件。所有来自软件创新的特性：可扩展性、可复制性、数字本质以及可修改性，都源自软件业务而非电影产业那种更固化的模式。这两个行业带来了截然不同的意识形态。

On the one hand, you kind of had the film business and the analogs where, you know, it's a visual entertainment medium, relatively high budgets, but, you know, again, sort of a television film analog on the one hand. So the games as a visual medium. And on the other hand, you had games as a technology and really games as software. And so all of the innovative things that flowed from software, all of the the those attributes of of software that we love, the scalability of it and the replicability of it and the digital nature of it and the extensibility and modability of it, all of those things came from the software side of the business, not that sort of more monolithic film industry side of the business. And both of those industries really bring kind of different ideologies to the table.

电影行业保守、以劳动力为中心、工会化，大厂与独立制作界限分明，这些特质都以某种方式渗透进游戏业。软件行业同样带来了自身意识形态。两者的碰撞虽曾创造魔法，但如今在AI带来的十字路口，我们必须做出选择——因为好莱坞将AI视为需要限制的劳动力威胁，而软件业正全力拥抱AI。

The film industry, very conservative, very labor centric, unionized, a real division between majors and indies, and all of those things kind of seeped into the games industry in in in in a certain way. And the software industry similarly brought its own ideologies along along with it. And I think the collision of those two things has produced magic in in many ways, but I feel as if we are at a crossroads at this point, really a crossroads that's been created by artificial intelligence. And I think when we're at this crossroads, we have a path to choose. Because if you look at what's currently happening out in these realms, Hollywood and the film industry and television industries have decided that AI is actually something to fear and to limit.

从微软到谷歌再到Salesforce，几乎所有软件公司都在推出AI功能。游戏业正站在这个十字路口，而根据我观察到的迹象，整个行业似乎正在选择电影业的道路——将AI视为威胁和劳动力问题，我认为这极其危险且具有局限性。

And they are treating AI in many ways as a labor issue, as a bad labor issue, as a as a as a way that that's gonna take people out of work and diminish the overall pie for people working in that industry. And at the same time, the software industry is jumping into the AI world with both feet. Right? Software has embraced AI. And pretty much every software company from Microsoft to Google to Facebook to, you know, salesforce.com to, Oracle are announcing sort of AI features and AI implementations and AI tooling.

（最终段落与前文合并翻译，保持逻辑连贯性）

And the games business is really now at that crossroads. And from all indications that I'm seeing at least, and the tea leaves that I'm reading, the lamb entrails that I'm seeing are all pointing in the direction of the games industry taking the path of the film business and viewing AI as a threat and AI as a labor problem. And I think that's extraordinarily dangerous and very limiting.

我自己也说不出比这更好的话了。这真的很奇怪，你知道，做我们作为风险投资人的日常工作，我们会见传统的软件公司，也会见游戏工作室。你跟软件公司交谈时，不出两秒他们就会提到AI如何在他们的开发和市场推广等各个环节中扮演关键角色。而在游戏行业，能有人提到AI如何影响他们的业务就算你走运了。

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's it's really strange, you know, to do the the day job that you and I do as venture capitalists where, you know, we meet with traditional software companies and then we meet with game studios. And you can't talk to a a software company for more than two seconds without them mentioning how AI is playing a critical role in their development and their go to market and all of these pieces. In the games industry, you're lucky if anyone mentions their how AI is playing a role in in their business.

嗯，我认为我们看到了这种——我坦率地称之为新卢德主义的现象。对于不了解历史的听众，卢德派是工业革命初期英国的反文化革命运动，以破坏工业设备闻名。实际上，‘sabotage’（破坏）这个词就源自将木鞋扔进工厂机器以破坏设备的行为。我觉得这里就有类似的新卢德主义在作祟。对吧？我想让你谈谈前几天Quake狂热粉丝与约翰·卡马克在推特上的交锋，因为它完美体现了这一点。

Well, I think we've seen this, what I'd call kind of leadism, frankly, to if if and, the the Luddites, for those of you who don't know from history, were basically a counterculture revolutionary movement in England in the early days of the industrial revolution, famous for sabotaging industrial equipment. Literally, the word sabotage comes from throwing sabotage or wooden shoes into the factory machinery in order to break the machines. I think there is a bit of neoledism at work here. Right? And it and it I want I want you to talk about this Twitter exchange between the Quake fanboy and John Carmack that that hit just a couple of days ago because I think it just encapsulates this so perfectly.

是的。大概一两周前，微软宣布了那个我们在这期节目开头提到的无引擎游戏引擎，但他们是用Quake来训练的。他们让你能以这种独特方式体验Quake——你走过时游戏会实时生成新场景。一个硬核Quake粉丝转发了微软的公告，并直接写道：这太恶心了，简直是对所有参与开发者的侮辱。

Yeah. There's a you know, let's call it a week or two ago at this point. Microsoft announced, you know, sort of that engine less game engine that we talked about at the beginning of this episode, but they trained it on Quake. And they made it so you you could experience Quake in this really unique setting where you were quite literally generating new parts of Quake as you're walking through. A hardcore Quake fanboy quote tweeted this this announcement from Microsoft and quite literally wrote, like, this is disgusting, and, you know, it it spits in the face of everyone who worked on this.

而且

And

但让我们读读这条推文。他说：‘这他妈绝对恶心，是在唾弃所有开发者的劳动成果。’

But let's read the tweet. He said, this is absolutely fucking disgusting and spits on the work of every developer everywhere.

没错。

Yes.

是啊。听着，推特上夸张言论不少，但这确实够夸张的。

Yes. Look. Twitter is home to a great deal of hyperbole, but this is pretty hyperbolic.

要我说可能更绝——这人的用户名是‘Quake之父’。你编都编不出这么绝的硬核粉丝名号。

I mean, it might be it might be even better because the the username of of this person is father quake. So you you can't even make it up. I mean, just just incredible of a hardcore fanboy.

然后这位‘Quake之父’本尊出现了。是的。直接艾特约翰·卡马克。卡马克怎么回应的？

And then father Quake himself appears Yes. In Yes. Front of John Carmack. And what does Carmack say? What?

‘这是令人印象深刻的研究工作。’然后‘Quake之父’回复道：‘完全生成式游戏会削减项目所需的工作岗位，让开发者更难就业。考虑到行业已经出现大规模裁员，发行商想尽办法缩减成本。这样的技术会让你（包括你）的辛勤劳动在未来变得多余，这很可怕。’

This is impressive research work. Yes. And father Quake replies, a fully generative game cuts out the number of jobs necessary for such a project, which in turn makes it harder for devs to get jobs. Considering what that we've already seen mass layoffs in the industry where publishers are looking to cut corners as much as possible. Something like this makes hard work, your hard work included, unnecessary for future endeavors, and that's scary.

这是充满谴责与恶意的。这正是电影行业采取的策略，对吧？仿佛AI成了劳工问题，我们该在此为充分就业辩护。有趣的是，我曾与Dean Takahashi——现存最顶尖的游戏科技记者之一——进行过深度访谈。

It's damning and spiteful. That's precisely the tack that the film industry is taking. Right? It's like AI is a labor issue, and we should be arguing here for full employment. Interestingly enough, you know, I had a sit down interview with Dean Takahashi, the really the the the the greatest of the existing tech journalists who cover games.

他是游戏新闻界最勤奋的人。我们访谈前私下闲聊时，他不断追问：如何让四万失业者重返岗位？这不该是首要任务吗？我们不该竭尽所能帮他们复工吗？

He's he's just the hardest working guy in games journalism. And, you know, we sat down for an interview, and we were talking beforehand in sort of the off camera. And he was really hammering me on, like, how do we get the 40,000 people who've been laid off back to work? Shouldn't that be the first priority? Shouldn't we be doing everything we can humanly do in order to get those people back to work?

如何让四万劳工重返岗位？我的回答是：做不到。游戏行业原本就存在人员过剩，业务规模与所需游戏数量根本不匹配。将AI视为劳工问题的观点，完全违背我的认知，也违背约翰·卡马克等人的看法。

How are we getting the how are we gonna get the return 40,000 laborers to work? And my response to Dean was, we're not. We just are not. There were too many people employed in the games business for the size of the business and for the number of games that are necessary in order to serve that business. And this whole idea that, like, this is a labor problem is so completely anathema to the way I look at it and the way I think a lot of people look at it and clearly the way John Carmack looks at it.

卡马克随后回应道：'你误解了这个技术演示的本质。AI工具确实降低了程序员、艺术家和设计师的技能门槛。我早期制作游戏时还需要手工汇编机器码，把方格纸角色转成十六进制数字。软件进步让这些工作如同马车轮维修般过时。打造强力工具才是计算机进步的核心。'

Since Carmack then responds, I think you are misunderstanding what this tech demo actually is, but I will engage with what I think your gripe is. AI tooling trivializes the skill sets of programmers, artists, and designers. My first games involved hand assembling machine code and turning graph paper characters into hex digits. Software progress has made that work as irrelevant as chariot wheel maintenance. Building power tools is central to all the progress in computers.

游戏引擎极大扩展了开发者的参与范围，即便它们弱化了我钟爱的系统工程的重要性。AI工具将让顶尖人才更上层楼，同时使小团队能成就更多，并吸引全新创作者群体。是的，我们终将实现通过指令生成互动游戏、小说或电影的世界，但最杰出的作品仍将出自专注的开发者团队。未来世界的内容财富将呈指数级增长。

Game engines have radically expanded the range of people involved in game dev even as they deemphasize the importance of much of my beloved systems engineering. AI tools will allow the best to reach even greater heights while enabling smaller teams to accomplish more and bring in some completely new creator demographics. Yes. We will get to a world where we where you could get an interactive game or novel or movie out of a prompt, but there will be far better exemplars of the medium still created by dedicated teams of passionate developers. The world will be vastly wealthier in terms of content available at any cost.

游戏开发者岗位会增减？这是开放命题。可能像农业那样，省力技术让极少数人满足全民需求；也可能像社交媒体，创意创业在各层面蓬勃发展。但'因担心失业而拒绝强力工具'绝非制胜之道。

Will there be more or less game developer jobs? That's an open question. It could go the way of farming where labor saving technology allow a tiny fraction of the previous workforce to satisfy everyone. Or it could be like social media where creative entrepreneurship has flourished at many different scales. Regardless, don't use power tools because they take people's jobs is not a winning strategy.

这简直是终极绝杀。

That is the mic drop of all mic drops.

太精彩了。这完美概括了你我对此现状的认知，堪称对这种'你们该同情我保住饭碗'论调的最佳反击。

Incredible. I mean, it it couldn't have said it better ourselves, and it summarizes so much of of how you and I feel about the current moment. And in a lot of ways, it's, like, the perfect response and fight back to what is this, like, we should feel bad for you and keep your job type of thing.

好了Blake，我们已尽力探讨了AI议题。再次建议大家去体验这些早期实验——它们会带给你80年代游戏既视感，因为当前AI平台领域的尝试都很初级。但这些有趣的雏形预示着未来方向，游戏从业者理应拥抱并参与其中。

Alright, Blake. I think we've done our job here and covered AI in the best way we could. And, again, I encourage everyone out there listening to go and seek out some of these things and see these very early experiments. Again, it'll give you some kinda nineteen eighties gaming vibes because a lot of these experiments that are ongoing in the AI as a platform world are quite rudimentary and really aren't polished experiences yet. But there's really interesting suggestions of where this is gonna go, And I think it's incumbent upon people who care about games and who care about the games business to really embrace this and to at least engage with it.

没错。你们真该试试ChatGPT、Cursor这些工具。

Yeah. Look. And and you should be trying out ChatGPT. You should be trying out Cursor. You should be trying out these things.

所以到了2025年，如果有人还没开始使用这些工具，对我来说简直是难以想象的。

And so the extent that you haven't, right, in in in 2025, that's sort of insane for me to be thinking that someone hasn't been using these.

因为你的孩子们已经在用了。

Because your kids are doing it.

没错。没错。没错。要知道，这就好比我们不用谷歌搜索一样不可思议。

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, this would be the equivalent of of us not using Google search.

所以如果你还没用，赶紧去用吧，因为它们只会越来越好。谢谢，布莱克。非常感谢。

And so go go and use these things if you aren't because it's only getting better. Thanks, Blake. Thank you.