The Infinite Arcade is billed as a website that will use GPT-4 AI to create “any arcade game you can think of”. We’re slightly afraid.
Generally speaking, making video games requires a certain level of technical skill, whether it might be an ability to program or a competent understanding of an engine like Unreal or Unity. But what if you could simply tell a piece of AI software your game idea, and let the machine make it for you?
Engineer and tech CEO Garrett McCurrach may have just come up with just such a system. According to a recent tweet, he’s come up with The Infinite Arcade, “a website that uses GPT-4 to code any arcade game you can think of and let you play it instantly.”
In that same tweet, he shows the site in action: the prompt “Pong but with 4 balls” is typed into a dialogue box, and a few seconds later, there’s a working Pong game on the screen, complete with – you guessed it – four balls bouncing around. Take a look:
Last night I made a website that uses GPT-4 to code any arcade game you can think of and let you play it instantly.
Here's a demo of The Infinite Arcade.
If people like it, I'll publish the site later today or tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/8KeWiFwXco
— Garrett Scott 🕳 (@thegarrettscott) March 16, 2023
The program is clearly in an early state – McCurrach admit himself that it goes “a little wonky” when trying to pull in images to use as sprites, for example – but its implications are still quite mind-boggling.
From an end-user perspective, it means we might soon be able to make all kinds of weird and wonderful games without having to type a line of code. From a copyright angle, it could prove to be a major headache for IP holders: being able to, say, put Mario in Resident Evil 4 will suddenly be in the hands of just about anyone, not just tech-savvy modders.
AI has been able to write code for a while, and here you can see a YouTuber using ChatGPT to write a program for the Commodore 64. The Infinite Arcade is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to make an AI platform specifically designed to generate games. If it works, and continues to evolve, it could have as big an impact on game development as AI is already having on, say, writing and illustration.
Not that game-making AI is McCurrach’s main line of work. He’s the CEO of Pipedream Labs, an underground logistics company that plans to one day deliver groceries to our homes at speeds in excess of 75 miles per hour.
McCurach hopes to have The Infinite Arcade website online over the next day or so.