OpenAI, ChatGPT’s parent company, recently announced the acquisition of a small “digital product company” called Global Illumination.
Founded by Thomas Dimson, Taylor Gordon and Joey Flynn, Global Illumination will reportedly work on OpenAI’s “core products, including ChatGPT.”
The team has previously designed and built products for Instagram and Facebook, according to the blog post, and has made “significant contributions” to YouTube, Google, Pixar and Riot Games, among others.
Notably, Global Illumination’s standout creation is an open-source video game called “Biomes,” which has already started the OpenAI community to compare the game’s graphic design to Microsoft’s OG game, “Minecraft.”
Given OpenAI’s extensive “billion-dollar” partnership with Microsoft in January, it seems puzzling for the AI startup to acquire a company that was building a somewhat similar open-source game to an established proprietary game. from Microsoft.
As part of that partnership, Microsoft is already rolling out new AI-powered experiences, powered by OpenAI’s models, into the tech giant’s consumer and enterprise products, including Azure OpenAI Service. Azure also acts as OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider, powering all of OpenAI’s research, product, and API service workloads.
By delving into the vast array of possibilities with OpenAI’s latest addition, could OpenAI enter the video game industry as a new revenue stream?
While it remains uncertain whether OpenAI wants to gain a foothold in the gaming industry, OpenAI’s technology could potentially find applications in open-world video games and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), where interactions with non-player characters ( NPCs) are key.
If the company wants to tap into the evolving potential of generative AI within gaming, this acquisition could position OpenAI as a trailblazer in a landscape that has yet to fully embrace AI’s creative capabilities.