| Hi everyone, it's Vlad in Hong Kong, filling in for Jason. I've been daydreaming about an overdue expansion to the inputs we play our games with, and I think AI might be the key, but first... This week's top gaming news: - Netflix to debut three Grand Theft Auto games on mobile
- GameStop investors stopped buying and started selling
- The first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI will arrive on Dec. 5. On X, a tease for the trailer immediately went viral.
I want to be able to talk to my games. When picking a play in the huddle in Madden NFL, I want to be able to speak it into existence, the way an offensive coordinator would. In Diablo IV, my Barbarian hero has abilities called Shouts, so why not let me activate them by, you know, shouting? And in God of War, when I fill up Kratos' rage gauge, it'd be awesome if I could turn it on by voice instead of by pressing two buttons at the same time. All these things are not only possible from a technology perspective, they're borderline trivial these days. Every modern gaming device has a built-in microphone, and natural-language processing by AI is improving rapidly. There's a transcription app called Otter.ai that I've seen gracefully handle earnings calls of semiconductor companies, replete with accented voices uttering gnarly terminology like "nanometers" and "EBITDA." To be specific, I'm not asking for entire games built around voice input, such as the amusing Scream Go Hero, which already exist as items of niche interest. Nor do I insist that audio has to be a mandatory element — just give us the extra option. What I want to see is the adoption of voice as an enhancement to gameplay in the biggest titles we lay our hands on each year. In franchise mode on Madden, a mini-game where I have to call out plays shown on screen could earn me awareness points for my quarterback or defensive captain. In the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI, you could craft a mission where I have to credibly impersonate someone in order to fool another character while pursuing my fiendish goals. I feel a measure of dissatisfaction both in how little of this I've seen from major game makers and in how narrowly I've seen tech companies deploy natural-language processing. Alphabet Inc.'s Google is still figuring out ways to make the technology useful on phones. Meanwhile, games are such low-hanging fruit. Shall I offer more examples? Team-based tactical games, like my old favorite Commandos or the turn-based XCOM, could become so much more natural with the adoption of voice commands in place of clicks. The iconic "Fus Ro Dah" roar in Skyrim would be vastly more satisfying if the game actually responded to the player doing it in reality. I haven't even mentioned karaoke mini-games or rhythm-based ones like PaRappa the Rapper. Look at all the outlandish stuff Nintendo Co. has found success with over the years when it broke out of the traditional gamepad norm, whether with the Wii motion controllers or that hula hoop thing that proved to be shockingly popular. Adopting more input options beyond the classic claw-grip controller of consoles will also probably yield greater inclusion as a direct result. None of this needs to be mandatory. I understand that not all gamers live alone in Bruce Wayne-scale caverns. But let's be real. We shout at our games as it is. Isn't it time they responded with some measure of intelligence, however artificial? Yes, you've already heard us sing the praises of Baldur's Gate 3, but maker Larian just released a major patch that expands it significantly. There are new epilogues to play through, a couple of new game modes and plenty of performance improvements. CyberPunk has taught me that the best time to pick up an expansive and ambitious game of this sort is some time after its initial launch. So here's your reminder to check it out if you haven't already. People love to chop grass in video games for some reason. Welcome to an open house at the MIT Game Lab. In Tennessee, thieves are targeting video-game stores. | 
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