Polyphony Digital

Indie vs. AAA: A Model for the Educational Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Video Games

This paper presents a work-in-progress conceptual model for assessing the educational potential of artificial intelligence in video games, using a comparison between indie and AAA game development.

• The paper's central thesis is that indie games, owing to greater creative freedom, lower production costs, and willingness to experiment, offer stronger opportunities for players to learn AI principles through active engagement, while AAA productions excel in scale, resources, and sophisticated AI deployment.
• The work is a qualitative, heuristic, work-in-progress conceptual model built from existing literature, industry analysis, and theoretical reasoning, not from direct empirical data, so its radar-chart comparison indicates relative tendencies rather than precise differences.
• The model is organized around six interrelated dimensions: type of data used for AI training, degree of AI personalization, cost and resources, overall AI development focus, scale of AI application, and experimental approach.