On September 11, 2026, the Shanghai Online Game Industry Association's technology-themed salon, "Implementing AI for Efficiency Gains in Game Production," hosted by Yiwan (Shanghai) Network Technology Co., Ltd. (TapTap) and co-organized by Youyan She (Game Research Society), was successfully held in Shanghai.
This salon focused on two major directions: AI and game engines. It invited three industry experts: Chen Tuo, Software Engineer for Unreal Engine in Greater China at Epic Games; Zhao Tianyi, Product Lead for TapTap Make; and Li Chao, Head of Tencent Games' AI-Native Game Engine Team. They delivered keynote shares on how AI integrates into game production processes, drives efficiency improvements, and transforms production paradigms, and further explored the practices and future trends of AI in game R&D through a roundtable forum.
At the salon, the three guests respectively presented on "From Text to World: Integration Practice of MCP and Unreal Editor," "TapTap Make: Games in the AI Era,"
Themed "AI-Native Engines: Reconstructing Game Production Paradigms, Opening an Era of Development Equity," the event shared practical experiences and reflections on AI-empowered game R&D from various perspectives, including tool application, production processes, and engine capabilities. It jointly explored feasible paths for AI to move from point-efficiency improvements to full-process implementation in game production, providing a platform for exchange, learning, and practical reference for game developers and industry practitioners.
Keynote Sharing
Chen Tuo, Software Engineer for Unreal Engine in Greater China at Epic Games, introduced the integration practice of MCP (Model Context Protocol) with the Unreal Editor. Through MCP, large language models can directly understand and invoke tools and capabilities within the Unreal Editor, and participate in actual production stages such as scene construction, asset retrieval, level layout, and code conversion in combination with PCG (Procedural Content Generation), moving AI further from a "conversational assistant" to an intelligent collaborator in game production.
Chen Tuo pointed out that the value of AI lies not in simply replacing developers, but in enhancing R&D efficiency and expanding creative possibilities through deep integration with game engines, tools, and production workflows. In the future, as related tools and workflows continue to improve, AI is expected to become more deeply integrated into the entire game development process.
Zhao Tianyi, Product Lead for TapTap Make, shared the changes occurring in game development methods in the AI era. He introduced that TapTap Make attempts to integrate natural language interaction throughout the game creation process, allowing creators to start with a one-sentence description of an idea and gradually complete the generation of gameplay, art, code, audio, and video content, while continuously adjusting the work through real-time previews and local development. AI can also generate exclusive editing and debugging tools for specific games, further lowering the development threshold from concept to playable version.
Zhao Tianyi stated that TapTap Make is not exploring "one-shot game generation," but rather aims to start the cycle of "idea → playable version → player feedback → further iteration" earlier. Leveraging the TapTap ecosystem, works can directly reach real players and iterate continuously based on community and product data. Cases showcased on-site, such as "When I Grow Old," "Non-Classical Mechanics," and "Guqin Master," demonstrated how AI helps creators faster translate themes like social issues, scientific knowledge, ecological protection, and traditional culture into concrete gameplay mechanics and interactive experiences.
Li Chao, head of Tencent Games' AI-Native Game Engine team, shared insights on how AI is further transforming game production paradigms through MagicLomix, an AI-native game engine. He proposed that an AI-native game engine is not simply about integrating large language models into traditional development tools, but rather enables continuous collaboration between humans and AI around a single editable project. This allows AI to understand code, scenes, and assets, leverage professional engine capabilities, and continuously verify and adjust based on actual runtime results, thereby moving AI beyond mere content and code generation into the real workflow of game engineering production.
Building on this, Li Chao introduced MagicLomix's explorations in enhancing engine capabilities, Agent Harness, and developer ecosystems. By incorporating professional capabilities such as rendering, 3D content generation, asset processing, and performance diagnostics into a unified workflow, AI-generated content can undergo standardized processing, quality inspection, and engine validation, truly becoming assets usable for game development. Its core goal is to consolidate professional game R&D capabilities into resources that both developers and AI can call upon and reuse, ensuring that creativity can not only be "made" but also that the game can truly "run."
Roundtable Discussion
The second half of the salon featured a roundtable discussion and interactive Q&A session hosted by Chu Yunfan, founder of Youyan She (Game Research Society). Addressing questions collected during registration, the three guests drew on their technical practices and industry observations to discuss topics such as how AI can further integrate into existing game production pipelines, the core value of developers in the AI era, and potential changes in team collaboration and job roles brought about by AI-native engines.
Subsequently, the discussion extended to the future direction of AI and the gaming industry, including how far the industry is from true "AI-native games," what new gaming experiences AI might enable that were previously difficult to achieve, and whether aesthetics, expression, and creator choices will become scarcer as content production costs continue to drop. Additionally, the audience discussed whether AI could further narrow the R&D gap between independent teams and large publishers, followed by an open Q&A session engaging with game developers and practitioners present.
Lin Zhimin, Deputy Secretary-General of the Association, stated in his address that this salon was the second practical session launched by the association following the intellectual property-themed salon on August 25, focusing on member enterprises' needs for technological upgrades. In the future, the association will continue to exert efforts in areas such as thematic technical research, routine consultation, training empowerment, and ecosystem building, establishing more high-quality exchange platforms to safeguard the high-quality development of Shanghai's online gaming industry.