What’s happened? Razer is launching two new AI game developer tools on Amazon Web Services, giving millions of customers access to the software. The tools include Razer Game Assistant and Razer QA Companion and are built on Amazon Bedrock.

• Razer Game Assistant can act like a coach watching over your shoulder – teaching you how to improve your in game performance. This works for both online and single player titles.
• Razer QA Companion can automatically detect performance-related bugs during gameplay, saving developers from having to spot issues themselves.
• After announcing the tools earlier this year and then releasing them into beta, they are now officially launching on the AWS site soon allowing many more game developers to access them.

Why is this important? Li Meng Lee, the Chief Strategy Officer, explains in a launch video that these tools can help reduce the time to market for many titles as the quality assurance period can be significantly reduced.

• Razer claims that QA can take up to 20-30% of overall budget and time when developing a game, and the new Razer QA companion can significantly reduce this.
• This will allow games to, in theory, release much quicker and for a lower cost.
• This can also provide smaller game studios or indie developers – who may not otherwise have the budget for expensive QA programs to have access to a high-quality bug spotting tool.

Why should I care? Many gamers have been complaining about the significant increase in games over the past decade, with AAA titles now coming in at sometimes over $70. We’re also seeing more release dates be delayed as developers are still working on games. Tools like this can help both of these issues but can also have downside.

• With games being developed much quicker and at a lower cost this allows savings to be passed onto the customer – hopefully meaning games will come down in price.
• Having AI tools reduce development time can also reduce games from being delayed repeatedly.
• However, with the gaming industry already in peril with constant layoffs occurring – AI tools like these could potentially be plummeting the industry further down a hole.