Razer CEO: Don’t declare the metaverse dead

AI hasn’t been widely rejected by gaming audiences in the same way that NFTs were but that’s not to say the tech sector's latest hype-cycle hasn't stirred up controversy.

Speaking at this year’s SXSW Sydney, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan predicted that AI would prove to be transformative for game development and the audiences it caters to.

“AI is a buzzword of sorts but if you delve down into AI specifically for gaming, I think there’s a huge amount of opportunity on that level,” he said.

While Tan didn’t have any answers to offer to the question of what an AI-powered application for gamers might look like, he expects that the rise of generative AI is something that will define gaming for the next couple of years.

“I do think we’ll see a lot more AI being used in the development of games. You’ll see indies being able to design games and a lot more of the game, in the sense that you don’t need a large team anymore, to do a lot of the heavy lifting where it can be done by AI,” he said.

More than anything else, Tan predicted that the rise of AI would see boom in the volume of games and gaming content.

Tan also revealed he remains ‘quietly optimistic’ about the metaverse.

“For where I do see gaming as somewhat already in the level of having created metaverses at this point in time,” he said, pointing to the integration between Roblox and Discord.

“I don’t know if it will reach the stage where all of us are wearing VR goggles all day long in a metaverse of sorts but from a gaming perspective we are already in the metaverse,” he said.