Global Gaming Hackathon 2024
in partnership with Intel®

 

Players ready

 

Sogeti and Intel® partnered this year to bring the 2024 Sogeti Global Gaming Hackathon to life. Supported by Gamesquare, the Hackathon emerged as an innovative event for Sogeti, challenging the brightest tech minds to push the boundaries of AI in gaming. The hackathon provided a platform for Sogeti teams to explore and expand the possibilities of gaming technology, emphasizing creativity, and practical implementation.

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What were the challenges

The teams had a choice of three challenges to create game-changing solutions that could redefine gaming experiences, whilst leveraging Intel’s advanced AI toolkits. The themes were: harnessing AI's potential to innovate the gaming industry, enhance player engagement & experiences through building communities, and supporting game studios and developers with AI. Intel provided entrants with two pivotal AI-based tools: the Intel® AI Game Dev Toolkit and Intel® Xe Super Sampling (XeSS), each offering distinct advantages and new avenues for gaming development.

Challenge 1: AI in Gaming Innovation

This category aims to pioneer gaming evolution by integrating AI into various aspects of the industry. The focus is on utilizing AI to not only revolutionize gaming experiences but also to champion sustainability within the industry. Participants are tasked with envisioning and creating AI solutions that can lead to groundbreaking changes in how games are developed, played, and experienced, with a keen eye on sustainability.

  • How can AI be utilized to revolutionize both the player experience and sustainability in gaming?
  • In what new ways can AI contribute to optimizing game development, thereby reducing the environmental impact?
  • What role can AI play in customizing gaming experiences in real-time?
  • How can AI be leveraged to predict player engagement habits?

Here, we focus on leveraging new tech to cultivate robust, positive, and sustainable gaming communities. The challenge is to create ideas that  enhance the social aspects of gaming in a way that's inclusive, safe and rewarding. Participants will explore ways to use technology to build healthier, more inclusive, and supportive online gaming environments, emphasising mental well-being and positive gaming behaviours. Consider communities that are specifically housed in environments such as Discord & Reddit.

  • What technological innovations can be developed to foster a more inclusive and supportive atmosphere in online gaming communities?
  • How can technology be utilised to monitor and positively influence the mental health and well-being of gamers?
  • Can AI or other technological advancements provide personalised experiences that encourage positive community behaviour and engagement?

Let’s look to address the challenges faced by game developers, with a consideration on the environmental impacts of game production. The goal is to create solutions that streamline the game development process, reduce its ecological footprint, and enhance the overall efficiency and quality of gaming products. Participants will explore the potential of technology, especially AI and machine learning, to revolutionise asset creation, game testing, and the distribution process in an eco-friendly manner whilst also ensuring that AI doesn’t “replace” people in the process.

  • What AI-based solutions can be developed to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of asset creation and management in game development?
  • How can technology be innovatively applied to minimise the environmental impact of game production and distribution?
  • In what ways can AI and machine learning be utilised to optimise the game testing process and ensure high-quality outcomes?
  • How can we ensure that careers are safe whilst utilising AI?

The Intel experience

The Intel® AI Game Dev Toolkit served as a cornerstone for participants, equipping them with a resource of AI-driven capabilities. With its powerful object detection and immersive world creation features, this toolkit allowed developers to push the envelope of real-time game-object style transfer visualizations and game-enhancement variations. At its core, the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit’s inference engine supercharged the performance for machine-learning gaming workloads, ensuring AI tasks could efficiently run on Intel’s CPUs, GPUs, and VPUs.

In addition, Intel® Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) offered a leap forward in gaming performance optimization. By rendering frames at a lower resolution and then intelligently upscaling them to a higher resolution, XeSS enhances the gaming experience, especially in GPU-intensive tasks like ray tracing and ultra-high-resolution gaming. Intel's AI-based algorithm reconstructs high-quality images that surpass traditional spatial solutions in handling motion, by sampling across multiple frames and analyzing depth, motion, color, and lighting, thus, elevating the visual fidelity of games.

Watch the Hackathon

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The judging panel, invited to score the entrants' presentations, included many figureheads from the gaming industry, such as the world-renowned Twitch streamer (+163k Followers) Perrikaryal, known for integrating EEG technology with gaming.

Claiming the top spot were the ‘Gaming Nomads’ from Sogeti India, who introduced the ground-breaking concept of emotionally intelligent NPCs, promising a future where digital realms are more inclusive and engaging. Their project, powered by Intel's sophisticated toolkits, demonstrated a big leap toward creating a more empathetic and inclusive gaming experience.

‘The Cake is a lie’ from Sogeti Sweden took second place, their vision of an AI-enriched gaming world ensures no two gaming experiences will ever be identical. Their project underlines the transformative impact AI can have on narrative depth & player immersion, ensuring a constantly evolving gameplay experience.

Finally, ‘Touching Grass’ from Sogeti USA took third place with their innovative application that used AI to generate real-world quests, beautifully bridging the virtual and physical realms. This initiative fosters community engagement & also promotes a balanced lifestyle among gamers.

The hackathon was not just a competition but a demonstration of Sogeti's commitment to innovation and its passion to stay at the forefront of technology. By challenging its teams to utilize Intel's toolkits, Sogeti aimed to uncover new ways AI can enhance gaming, from creating more lifelike NPCs to generating dynamic content that adapts to players' actions.

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Hackathon Prizes

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  • First Prize
    A Meta Quest 2 VR headset for each member.

  • Second Prize
    A Rabbit R1 AI-powered gadget for each member.

  • Third Prize
    A €100 Amazon voucher for each member.