I recently posted a thought about coop gaming on my LinkedIn page (I split my content into thoughts for short random messages on hot topics and Articles for thought-through knowledge sharing about some topic that resonates with me). I was praising the success of Helldivers II, thinking out loud about the benefits of playing with friends and reminiscing some good old classic titles. Oh, and I also shared this video that explains funnily how non-gamers perceive games.
Since then, I've been thinking more about it at the back of my head, and then I bumped into this post on the Verge about Google's new AI, SIMA, "learning to play games with you." It's cool but not cool at the same time. Imagine that with the option to enable AI co-op partner, you won't need friends to finish It Takes Two or won't be suffering alone in Don't Starve Together. But the "not cool" part is that you won't share all the emotions from the game, which at least cuts the satisfaction in half. I doubt you can get the same emotions from Back 4 Blood if you are playing with an AI partner, as it won't be doing some dumb stuff a human will do (well, except tea-bagging bots in Halo Infinite, that was hilariously human though not intended).
On the other hand, Murad from 2010 would love to have an AI companion who can mine Mithril Ore for him in Burning Steppes in World of Warcraft... This might save precious time on grinding for those who don't like it (the reason I dropped Monster Hunter World), and those who enjoy grinding can just refrain from using AI assistance. But how will this affect game retention? Won't it create behavior when players log in just to collect rewards, as AI will do everything else?
They say that SIMA is trained in No Man's Sky now, I wonder if it affects the feeling of exploration or it's more like a companion that you can command to do things like in party RPG game. One way or another, this will become mainstream and most likely a non-obligatory feature so our game experience should be safe, but still, I would love to hear more opinions.
P.S. Do you know what else makes the games feel more fun besides the co-op? Dog companions! Fallout, Far Cry, CoD Ghosts, and Blair Witch understand what I'm talking about.
