With a $5.8 million injected funding, Los Angeles-based gaming startup Liminal Experiences Inc. made its official debut on Tuesday to bring user-generated content to video games. Founded by Brandon Mulligan, who worked at Riot Games, the company aims to help users build their own role-playing video games with artificial intelligence tools to create unique characters, environments and storylines.
However, Mulligan acknowledges that the use of AI is a sensitive topic in the gaming industry. Liminal was founded in 2022, as video game actors went on strike to protest the unregulated use of AI in games. After years of struggle, the Actors Guild reached an agreement with 80 game projects to provide video game actors with some AI protection. This background makes the application of AI in games a complex debate focus.
“In the gaming industry, AI is a sensitive topic, and many developers are worried that they will be replaced, and players are thinking about the ethical issues,” Mulligan said in a statement. “It’s tricky to get involved in this debate, so most gaming companies choose to quietly explore options internally rather than discuss AI publicly. This leaves the public space for startups founded by people outside the industry who try to portray a vision for the future.”
Despite the industry's controversy, the application of AI in video games has become an irreversible trend. Sony is developing an AI prototype for its PlayStation character, while Microsoft and Google have also launched early stages of video game AI models. Even so, investors don’t seem to be skeptical about Liminal’s AI strategy, and Riot Games and its founder Mark Merrill are among the investors in the round.
Currently, Liminal is still in development and plans to launch early prototypes by 2026. This new tool not only provides players with a creative platform, but also provides new possibilities for the future development of the gaming industry.