AI as a "brainstorming partner" or a junior member of the team

• Pavel Istomin, Jorge Gomes, Ahmetcan Demirel and Oz Silahtar discussed AI at PGC Barcelona 2025.
• They shared tips on getting the most out of AI by asking the right questions.

"We are using AI in every field. Let’s say, artists, they can complete like 80% of their work with AI and then finish and polish it. For developers, it’s Copilot - they can complete routine work or get some speed-up of the development process using AI," said Hypercell publishing game producer Pavel Istomin.

"It’s possible to make a high-quality casual product that five years ago needed to allocate hundreds of people. Right now, using AI, it’s possible to make it with six people in the development team."

Istomin spoke at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona this June, sharing insider tips on the applications of AI for games development. He was joined on stage by Ludo CTO Jorge Gomes, Deconstructor of Fun product and game design consultant Ahmetcan Demirel, and AI and tech entrepreneur Oz Silahtar.

Getting the best out of AI

"You can speed up dramatically, but you need to know what to do," Istomin added, noting the importance of having a senior person on the team experienced in whichever field AI is being applied.

"When you’re using ChatGPT or whatever, you ask something but you shouldn’t trust the first answer. You need to ask ‘Are you sure?’. Let’s say you’re doing ideation and then you build game design documents and throw them to AI and say, ‘Challenge this GDD as art director, as CTO’.

"The more specific questions you ask the better it will be."

Overall, Istomin advised treating AI like a junior member of the team, "very skilled" and with their own knowledge to bring to the table, but without the expertise of a more senior staff member.

Gomes commented that Ludo AI is mainly used as a "brainstorming partner" for game concept development, coming up with new ideas and stories, game mechanics, and for problem solving.

"Most people are driving a lot of value just from the simple fact that they have an AI partner there to help solve problems with their game 24/7, which might not seem such a big deal for a large studio where you have a team of people that can brainstorm, but when you’re an indie dev or a small studio with limited resources, this is a gamechanger," he explained.

Silahtar suggested that bigger companies are more careful with use of AI, potentially using it for ideation but not in production.

"Another thing worth discussing is the place of creativity versus the use of AI," added Demirel.

Pocket Gamer Connects will make its inaugural appearance in Korea on October 31st.