Top Gaming VC Is 'Shocked' Studios Are Resisting Generative AI

Moritz Baier-Lentz, head of gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, went on record this week saying he is "shocked and sad" that the games industry is treating generative AI as a threat. The timing was either oblivious or calculated: the latest GDC State of the Industry survey, released the same week, showed a majority of developers see generative AI as a net negative for the industry. Baier-Lentz isn't wrong that the technology is advancing. AI NPCs that hold real conversations, a wave of AI-disclosed demos on Steam, NVIDIA pitching hardware built around it. But the investor-vs-creator divide is the actual story: money is moving one direction while the people shipping the games are moving the other. Studios have watched colleagues lose jobs as AI adoption was cited alongside COVID-era overhiring as a cost lever. "Demonizing" is a strange word choice for that reaction.