The generative AI space is attracting a pretty high level of investment, including in the gaming space. Titan AI is a new mobile games studio that has raised more than $500,000 in pre-seed funding led by Berkeley SkyDeck. Joining several other generative AI gaming startups that want to reduce the cost and speed of creating 2D and 3D content for games, Titan AI means that mobile games can cost upwards of $250,000 to make, depending on their complexity.

Instead, it uses image generators like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E to create 2D graphics that are then combined with 3D models using proprietary technology. In building level segments — easy, medium, and hard — the company is also training AI to perform tasks that co-founder Fabien-Pierre Nicolas described as "labor-intensive.

Titan AI was founded by Nicolas, former vice president of U.S. marketing at SmartNews and Victor Ceitelis, the co-founder of Scenario, a generative AI startup that enables game developers to create custom image generators.
For its most important aim, the company targets to be inclusive to as many players as possible, whose representations in games have been low to date.

We both saw an opportunity to help many people feel better represented in games, which is now central to today's entertainment culture, and making games for people we love – our families," Nicolas told TechCrunch. Nicolas is an LGBTQ+ child and his wife is Korean. Meanwhile, Ceitelis is LatinX and was born to Chilean parents.

"In many games and movies, the hero plunders and steals treasures from Mesoamerican culture. [Ceitelis] never saw his people be the hero in games," Nicolas added. This is why Titan AI wanted its first game, Aztec Spirit Run, to "reverse the trend" and feature a main character who races against Conquistadores to defend the temple's treasure.".

Besides KPop Dream Run, Reptile Dream Run and Holy Bible Run: Jesus Miracles, three other prototypes surfaced at the studio.

Travelling endless runners like Temple Run or Subway Surfers have been at the charts for years now, over a decade. So, it is an easy bet for developers to follow this runner template — especially when they just want to play around with generative AI. Titan AI has leveraged the tech to create hundreds of character customization elements in-game, including "outfits and tattoos," according to Nicolas. The company will add later the runner speed as well as the ability of characters to collect more items such as golden skulls.

 "During our preliminary research, we realized that most users in the underrepresented categories played at least one runner," said Nicolas. 

However, while runner games have proven to be extremely addictive and so might prove successful for Titan AI, many will likely argue that it's overdone. The future of generative AI in gaming is rife with possibilities, so we look forward to seeing what else the company can come up with. For instance, generative AI could enable players to design their own in-game avatar from scratch.

"The runner template was to test our platform's capabilities to create playable prototypes with 3D elements… our proprietary AI allows us to test other hypotheses around AI-level building," Nicolas said. He said that the company is experimenting with another game template yet didn't say what that was.

Since Titan AI believes accessibility is key for underserved audiences, the studio has made all its games free to play. The company earns its revenue from in-app ads and paid features.

Nicolas points out that Titan AI’s funding round represents “a story of hope and optimism in the current ‘doom and gloom’ in the gaming industry: a new studio raising money with a positive mission for the world,” he said.

Seven angel investors also participated in the round, including generative AI product leader at Meta Andreas Gross, co-founder of BlackoutLab Benjamin De la Clémendière, and Belka Games co-founder Yury Mazanik and Duolingo's chief business officer Bob Meese.