Current Status of Applying Artificial Intelligence in Digital Games

Abstract

Artificial intelligence in digital games has developed in the last 40 years. It has a long and deep history with digital games. AI techniques in digital games evolved independently and differently from the academic AI research of science and engineering which require functionality in the real world. Digital games have complex and large-scale virtual 2D/3D worlds where game characters live in, recognize, make decisions, and design their motions to fitting their environment. The digital world of games is larger, more complex, and more detailed than any other virtual world. It is the most suitable experimental field to study and evaluate AI technologies in the virtual world. The AI for a game character is called ``Character AI'' and its function is for characters to make decisions. This is much different from functional AI in academic research, and making a character means to create one whole intelligence. The other unique AIs are ``Navigation AI'' which analyzes and recognizes the environment of game world and ``Meta AI'' which dynamically controls and changes the progress, situation, and drama of the game. These three AIs, namely, Character AI, Navigation AI, and Meta AI, cooperate with each other and develop one unified system to form a dynamic user experience. In addition, recently learning and evolution approaches have been introduced into AI for digital games. In this chapter such current status of AI in digital games is described.