The wave of artificial intelligence that began with ChatGPT is sweeping the world. AI, once considered a distant and unrelated phenomenon, has transformed into a familiar life assistant within just a few years, starting with Lee Sedol’s Go match.
Some describe it as the most significant reform in human life since the advent of smartphones, while others predict a more radical future through AI. From YouTube algorithms to shopping preferences and phone call summaries, it is no exaggeration to say that our lives can no longer be discussed without AI.
What about games? Undoubtedly, no group is as familiar with AI as game developers. Since the emergence of PCs in the 1980s, game developers have been creating AI. Even if it was just simple up, down, left, and right movements, developers embedded primitive AI in NPCs (non-player characters) to compete with players. This accumulated technology over decades has met innovation to reach the present.
It is well-known that Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s DeepMind and a leading authority in contemporary AI, developed AI-enhanced games like ‘Theme Park’ and ‘Black & White’ in his youth.
Inevitably, significant changes have been observed in the game development process since ChatGPT. Nexon, one of the leading game companies in the domestic industry, has also embraced this massive wave of change.
Choi Ha-hyeok, known as the ‘AI evangelist’ within Nexon, is one who feels this rapid change at Nexon. He explains, “AI is already dominating game development.”
Nexon’s Choi Ha-hyeok, AI Manager (Source: Game DongA)
From Broadcasting to UI UX, Company Strategy: Choi Ha-hyeok Takes Flight
Choi Ha-hyeok was not originally a game developer. In his early career, he worked at a broadcasting station planning content and analyzing data, but his thirst for comprehensive and dynamic content led him to the gaming industry.
Having been deeply immersed in retro games like Daewoo MSX and Nintendo Famicom in the 1980s, he first approached Japanese companies Capcom and Bluehole (now Krafton). He believed that the field of game UI and UX was where he could quickly excel, as it was the best area to build skills in game structure, data analysis, and content composition.
Continuing to enjoy and analyze numerous games, Choi joined Com2uS’s game production management office to further hone his market insight. After joining Nexon Games, he discovered the potential of AI and began researching it in earnest.
His approach to AI was from a ‘structural analysis’ and ‘productive’ perspective. While most people used AI for consumer purposes like transforming profile images into ‘Ghibli’ characters or creating humorous videos, Choi began researching it from a thoroughly productive angle.
Although no one at the company instructed him, Choi purchased a state-of-the-art graphics card costing several million KRW to create an AI tuning environment and voluntarily tuned AI engines at home daily. Despite not having extensive programming knowledge, he communicated with AI developers through overseas English threads and tuned various AI tools to suit his own know-how, discovering even greater potential.
As his know-how accumulated, AI increasingly became his wings. Handling various tasks alone, such as planning, design, QA, and statistics, which usually required multiple people, Choi found himself unknowingly cheering. He was becoming the person who could produce results the fastest within the company.
Nexon’s Choi Ha-hyeok, AI Manager (Source: Game DongA)
Active as an AI Evangelist in the Gaming Industry, Gaining Fame
Of course, encouraging people to use AI was not easy. AI was still an unfamiliar intruder in daily life, and developers often showed resistance to this barbarian-like AI encroaching on their domain. Many developers were visibly uncomfortable with the perceived threat to their livelihoods. Although not openly mentioned, many viewed Choi Ha-hyeok with wary eyes.
However, Choi was unfazed by such developers’ attitudes. He fully understood their wariness and did not want to create discord. Therefore, he began by recruiting close colleagues and passing on his AI know-how.
The first task he undertook within the company was writing a ‘manual.’ He systematically analyzed and shared how to use AI and its effects. He detailed actual use cases and their economic impact, sharing a PowerPoint presentation every two months and suggesting improvements to the development process. As one and two years passed, his know-how solidified, and the gap with developers who distanced themselves from AI widened.
His foresight proved correct. At some point, AI began to be recognized as an irresistible trend. The perspective of developers who had unconditionally rejected it started to change accordingly. Demand for AI use in design parts, such as AI upscaling, remastering, and re-imaging, began to emerge, and AI started being used in game verification aspects, such as utilizing infinite battle data to predict various variables.
Demand for various concepts also increased. While AI-generated results could not be directly used as game resources, AI was actively used in creating initial concepts for game verification, such as items, weapons, icons, props, concept art, level design, 3D previews, media generation, and effect resource production.
As the need for increased development efficiency through AI arose within the company, AI meetings were held for each game development team, and Choi Ha-hyeok was busy being summoned. Thus, Choi Ha-hyeok gradually became a unique presence within the company.
Nexon’s Choi Ha-hyeok, AI Manager (Source: Game DongA)
Choi Ha-hyeok: “AI Will Become the Most Powerful Development Tool in History”
Choi Ha-hyeok diagnoses that AI is advancing at a pace that surpasses thousands of years of human life and experience in just a few years. Although it cannot yet comprehensively replace the results of skilled humans, he believes that in specific areas, when tuned to suit practical situations and nodes are well-constructed, AI has reached a stage where it can produce performance 50 to 100 times that of humans.
Choi especially predicts that AI will play the role of a development tool that produces high-quality results across all areas in an extremely short period in the future. This is why he continues his daily research and tuning.
‘Mass-producing high-quality results.’ In fact, this is not limited to game development. It can be the ultimate goal of any company. Ultimately, this leads to ‘cost reduction.’
However, despite AI’s high potential, there are obstacles. Not everyone can use AI effectively. Depending on the user’s disposition, know-how, and style, the results can vary greatly, and in some cases, it may produce worse results than not using it at all.
Therefore, Choi advises that to use AI properly, one must start by ‘understanding the principles of generative technology.’ Understanding the generative principles and knowing how to request what is needed at the right timing is essential.
Understanding whether tools like Stable Diffusion, Google Flash Nano Banana, and ChatGPT are noise-generating assembly models or conversational generative models, and grasping their characteristics, allows one to give ‘commands’ accordingly and achieve the desired ‘results.’
Choi explains that one should learn to walk in conversation with AI, stating, “Just as you study a foreign language like English, you need to continuously use and understand AI through dialogue to make it the best development partner.”
Separate from Choi’s diagnosis, AI is already being widely used in game development worldwide. Even Steam has recently withdrawn its closure on AI-used games, indicating that AI usage is becoming commonplace.
Choi Ha-hyeok stated that he would continue to dedicate himself to AI research for himself and the company. As a developer, he will continue to strive for higher possibilities and remain active as an AI game development evangelist.
Choi Ha-hyeok on ‘The Future of Games’
Choi Ha-hyeok predicts that if AI advances one or two generations beyond the current stage, it will be possible to produce A-grade games quickly with as few as 3-4 people or as many as 10-20 people, centered around AI-friendly development teams.
He also anticipates that with accumulated know-how, a time will come when AAA large-scale games can be produced in a short period using automated systems.
Ultimately, Choi Ha-hyeok envisions a ‘real-time game generation era’ as the future game market. He predicts that environments like ‘Roblox’ will unfold in real-time.
A time when game users can experience personalized games in real-time with just a single art image they like, a preferred world view or setting, and a few lines of prompts necessary for operation.
He concludes that the differentiation in future games will ultimately come down to the difference in human imagination and creativity that creates elements and fun in the world.
In the final part of the interview, Choi Ha-hyeok advised, “As AI tools become more advanced, we must expand the imagination we have cherished while loving games and prepare for a new AI game era.”
Nexon Intelligence Labs (Source: Nexon)
Nexon’s AI Research Lab ‘Intelligence Labs’
Apart from Choi Ha-hyeok, Nexon is also conducting research on AI’s core technology at the group level. The dedicated development research lab is Intelligence Labs.
Nexon Intelligence Labs, established in April 2017 with a team of about 800, is a specialized AI and data analysis organization. The lab’s goal is to enhance game features and maximize game enjoyment by developing and applying systems using machine learning and deep learning technologies.
Intelligence Labs is conducting research on ▲data learning using Large Language Models (LLM) ▲scenario generation and conversational AI creation ▲simultaneous multilingual translation ▲rapid production tool development through Model Context Protocol (MCP) research.
The result is ‘GameScale,’ which integrates management of all stages from development to launch and live service, and it has been applied to several of Nexon’s flagship games such as ‘MapleStory,’ ‘Sudden Attack,’ ‘Mabinogi,’ and ‘The Kingdom of the Winds.’
Reporter Cho Hak-dong from Game DongA igelau@gamedonga.co.kr
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