ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INTERFACE STANDARDS COMMITTEE TO ENABLE MAJOR ADVANCES IN VIDEO GAMES

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - August 13, 2002 - The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has announced the formation of their Artificial Intelligence (AI) Interface Standards Committee.

With industry standards in place for basic AI interfaces, developers will be able to create believable and interesting non-player characters that can learn and have emotions, as well as complex reasoning and interaction skills. Further, developers will be able to create advanced AI technologies like automated story-telling systems that adapt to a player's interests.

"The next qualitative jump for artificial intelligence in games will be dependent on appropriate interfaces for in-house and external AI tools and middleware," stated committee chairperson and Carnegie Mellon University scientist Alexander Nareyek. "The Committee’s work will unburden game AI developers from worrying about low-level procedures, and will enable them to focus on higher-level creative AI tasks."

The initiative is a joint effort of game AI developers, academics, middleware representatives and other relevant experts. The Committee will develop interface standards in such areas as pathfinding, steering, decision trees, finite state machines, rule-based systems, goal-oriented action planning and world interfacing.

The Committee involves over 65 AI experts, with the various working groups being led by:

Ruth Aylett - University of Salford
Abdennour El Rhalibi - Liverpool John Moores University
Richard Evans - Lionhead Studios
Ian Frank - Future University-Hakodate
Nick Porcino - LucasArts Entertainment
Dave C. Pottinger - Ensemble Studios
Michael Van Lent - University of Southern California
For a complete list of Committee members and further details of the Committee’s work, please contact Alexander Nareyek or visit www.igda.org/Committees/ai.htm.

About the IGDA
The International Game Developers Association is a non-profit association established by game developers to foster the creation of a worldwide game development community. The IGDA's mission is to build a community of game developers, which leverages the expertise of its members for the betterment of the industry and the development of the art form. For more information on IGDA, please visit www.igda.org or e-mail info@igda.org.