Sakurai says generative AI will flood market with unprofitable, unoriginal games
The Smash Bros. director told Denfaminicogamer that AI can only reproduce what already exists, while human creativity like Fumito Ueda's cannot be replicated.
Game director Masahiro Sakurai said generative AI will increase the number of game releases, but that most of those titles will be "unprofitable", in an interview with the Japanese outlet Denfaminicogamer.
Sakurai said games created or mass-produced by AI will mostly be reproductions of systems already seen in other games. He pointed to simple-premise puzzle games such as Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! as the kind of release AI could easily replicate.
He added that AI may eventually become powerful enough to imitate complex games such as Fumito Ueda's Ico or Shadow of the Colossus. Even so, he argued that Ueda's future work will be something AI simply cannot replicate, and that human creativity lies in that space.
His core argument, as he put it, is that AI refers to things already created but cannot refer to things not yet created. Sakurai recently retired from his role judging the Game Designers Awards.
Background
In 2010, 275 games were published on Steam, whereas more than 19,000 released in 2026. Valve's current Steam Next Fest features more than double the number of demos compared to last year, due in part to the influx of "AI slop", and some indie developers have pulled planned demos and playtests out of fear their games might be copied by AI before release.
Quick answers
What did Masahiro Sakurai say about generative AI?
He said generative AI will increase the number of game releases and that most of them will become unprofitable titles, mostly reproducing systems seen in other games.
Where did Sakurai make these comments?
In an interview with the Japanese outlet Denfaminicogamer.