Peter Moore argues Asha Sharma’s real challenge is making players accept that AI is not automatically a lazy content conveyor belt, and that it can be good for games if it serves the player instead of the spreadsheet.
Peter Moore – a former executive at Sega, Xbox, and Electronic Arts who is now a co-owner of Wisla Kraków, staying close to football even after his Liverpool years – weighed in on Asha Sharma’s appointment as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming. In his view, it is understandable that people worry she will push artificial intelligence aggressively, even if she denies that is her plan.
Moore says most hardcore players currently reject AI because they associate it with fake, lazy, assembly-line game creation. He argues Sharma is in a rare position to explain how AI could become a positive shift, provided it is used to serve players rather than purely optimize business metrics. He also suggests studios will use artificial intelligence in one form or another regardless.
“AI is despised by gamers right now, who see it as a false, lazy, conveyor belt way of creating games. She’s gotta expect that. But, in game development, we have been using forms of artificial intelligence forever. Ultimately, Microsoft needs to answer your question. Is she there because she’s AI? Or is she there because she’s proven herself within the Borg at Microsoft, has been a capable executive leader, and this is a great challenge for her? Did they want to do something different? I think her mantra should be that it’s good for gaming if AI serves the player and not the spreadsheet. She must be able to explain this concept. All the studios are going to use artificial intelligence in one form or another. I don’t think gamers really understand what that means or how it all comes together. However, she has a great opportunity to bridge both worlds and promote growth and deeper, more immersive experiences. Games will be fundamentally less expensive. Perhaps we’ll have games that are better, faster, and cheaper because the cost of developing triple-A games has become immense. Over the decades I’ve been involved, game development has become like massive manual labor, with hundreds, if not thousands, of people working on a game. That’s the key. She has that. If I were her, I would have this unique perspective. I just have to turn it into a positive in the eyes of the gamer.”
For the past two years, Sharma has served as president of Microsoft’s CoreAI division, overseeing a portfolio that includes AI models, applications, agents, responsible AI, and developer tools. That background, Moore implies, could make her the right person to translate the technology’s role in development, even if convincing players to accept generative AI is unlikely to be easy.
