Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated significant potential in Game AI research in terms of playing games with abstract or negotiable rules and winning conditions, enriching interactive dialogue systems, and assisting in the development of complex game worlds. On the one hand, there is a growing interest within both academia and industry in leveraging LLMs to autonomously or semi-autonomously generate game elements such as stories, characters, dialogue, quests, and world-building. The use of LLMs to design better game content has attracted a strong following among academics, industry professionals, and enthusiasts. On the other hand, LLMs have shown promise in controlling both AI agents playing the game to win, and as NPCs with both conversational and emotive constraints. Finally, LLMs can be used in all aspects of a game, such as acting as a core game mechanic, or even as a tool for viewership by automating or assisting eSports commentary. While promising, LLMs have been met with criticisms, especially concerning their energy usage and the way that their training data is often procured.

This special issue aims to motivate further research in these directions and welcomes submissions in all applications of LLMs in games. We invite submissions focused on LLMs with over 100M parameters, based on Transformer architectures, utilizing text as both input and output. Submissions should include enough detail to allow for replication of results. Ideally, this would include access to the raw data (or detailed instructions on how to obtain it), a clear description of the methodology (including any preprocessing steps), prompts used, and code used for the analysis. Authors are encouraged to open-source their code, adhering to open science principles. The above safeguards (model size, prompt and code availability, availability of results, replicability) will be checked on each submission, and may lead to desk rejection if they are not met.

Topics:

Topics include but are not limited to:

• LLM methods for generating game content such as narratives, dialogue, character development, quests, and world-building.
• LLM methods for evaluating, validating, and testing existing or generated game content.
• Tools and human-computer interfaces that use LLM techniques for game content design, game development, and game programming.
• Applications of LLM technologies in real-world settings such as the game industry, including post-mortems.
• Models of designer aesthetics, style, goals, and processes based on LLMs.
• Paradigms of human or computational creativity in LLM-assisted or LLM-based game content design.
• User studies of humans interacting with LLMs for game-playing agents or game design tools.
• Opinion papers or theory papers on the use of LLMs in games.
• Analyses of potential risks of applying LLMs to games and possible safeguards to prevent them.
• Game-playing agents powered, in part or in full, by LLMs.
• Applications of LLMs as conversational agents within the game, such as Non-Player-Characters or Game Masters.
• Implementations of LLMs as primary or secondary game mechanics.
• Work that combines LLMs with other foundation models, such as image-to-text generators, for the purpose of generating game content or other game applications.
• Applications of LLMs for audience engagement, such as game summarization, player behavior analysis, or live commentary.

Call for Papers:

We invite the submission of high-quality papers on the topics above in the following formats:

• Research papers: analytical papers of new research concerning the use of specific technologies, design and development tools or evaluation frameworks;
• Case studies: real-world applications, evaluation of industrial solutions, and lessons learned in putting solutions into practice;
• Surveys and tutorials: analysis of the state of the art.

Authors should follow IEEE Transactions on Games guidelines for their submissions and clearly identify their papers for this special issue during submission. Papers must present original, previously unpublished work and will be subject to the standards and peer-review process of the journal. Scientific and technological content in line with the journal is expected. Moreover, see the guidelines on this page about valid submissions regarding replicability. See submission guidelines for author information guidelines and page length limits.

Important dates:

• Paper submission: December 1st, 2024
• First decisions: March 1st, 2025
• Early access SI publication (online): May 2025
• Publication in print: Start 2026

Guest Editors:

• Roberto Gallotta (University of Malta, MT)
• Antonios Liapis (University of Malta, MT)
• Matthew Guzdial (University of Alberta, CA)
• Lara J. Martin (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, U.S.A)
• Julian Togelius (New York University, U.S.A)