AI in Game Art: Art Director's Perspective
AI hasn’t made art direction easier.
We’re digging into casino game art, the realities of AI-assisted production, and how creativity and business intersect in one of mobile gaming’s most misunderstood genres. Joining me is Peter Franco, Senior Art Director at SciPlay.
The Art Director's Paradox: Peter Franco on Casino Games and AI
When Peter Franco joined the social casino space in 2012, iPhone games were still figuring themselves out, and slots were just becoming a genre. Today, he's Senior Art Director at SciPlay, overseeing the visual evolution of titles like Goldfish Casino, and navigating a landscape where AI tools are as essential as Photoshop once was.
Our conversation covered everything from the common misconceptions about social casino art to the existential questions AI raises for creative professionals. What emerged was a portrait of a craft far more nuanced than most assume, and a future more uncertain than anyone can predict.
The Casino Art Director Misconception
"I think some people think it's a cakewalk or you can just come in and phone it in artistically," Franco says, addressing perhaps the biggest misconception about social casino work. "That's not how I like to operate."
Franco, a classically trained artist, treats every project, whether AAA, indie, or anything in between, with the same seriousness. "Everything needs to have a holistic vision, an artistic vision statement, something that you're trying to achieve visually or creatively or make the user or the player feel."
This isn't just drawing pictures for slot machines. The modern art director must also deeply understand KPIs and business metrics, not just create beautiful art. "Otherwise, your art may not make sense," Franco explains. "It may not fit in the game. And then you're going to get endless feedback from everyone else who's trying to push the business forward."
This business understanding shapes everything, including how characters get redesigned.
For example, when SciPlay modernized its mascot, it wasn't a small creative team making aesthetic decisions. They surveyed VIPs, ran data-driven marketing exercises, and discovered players wanted more emotional states from the familiar character. The result: a modernized rig that feels familiar while delivering something new.
The AI Reckoning
And then there's AI.
Franco is refreshingly candid about how SciPlay uses AI in art: concept exploration, logo development, individual asset creation, and generating progressive states for features (like a farm that grows from bare plot to full harvest). They train custom models, use tools like Layer AI, and maintain bi-weekly training sessions because "what you thought was impossible four months ago is already common today."
But, and this is crucial, AI never produces final assets that go directly into the game. Everything requires human intervention: photo-bashing, composition refinement, color correction, and technical optimization for Unity's draw calls. "You still need a good artist to stitch everything together, understand the composition, understand the color... AI might get some nice elements, but it might not solve the creative problem that you're there to solve."
Franco's advice to anxious artists? Think of AI as turning everyone into mini art directors, with an "army of artists in this AI box." It's about direction, curation, and taste, you know, human skills.
Still, he doesn't sugarcoat the discomfort: "It's invading and intruding in what artists enjoy doing." When I asked if AI is more exciting or terrifying, Franco answered as an individual: "I'd say terrifying."
Not just for artists, but for society at large. "I'm talking about the future of military use of AI and encryption for our personal savings and social accounts... Let alone extinction-level events."
He pauses. "So far, none of that's happened. Knock on wood."
Post-AI, What Changes, What Endures?
Looking five years ahead, Franco envisions "a core team of experts working with an art director, leveraging AI quite a bit." The army of artists needed to create games may shrink. But what won't change?
Traditional art skills will become differentiators. In a world where everyone can prompt AI, the ability to draw, paint, and compose from scratch will distinguish professionals. "Extreme creativity, extreme traditional skills, I think, will remain important."
His career advice to aspiring art directors reflects this hybrid future: become a rock star in one art specialty first, then expand to understand the entire production pipeline, then master people management, then learn the business and KPIs. And now? Add AI fluency to that list, where you're constantly learning new capabilities.
When I asked about underrated skills, his answer was telling: "Understanding the entire pipeline." The best artists aren't just craftspeople; they're systems thinkers who know how their work flows through production, engineering, and onto players' screens.
Here's the paradox Franco identifies: while understanding the full pipeline makes you valuable, your portfolio still needs specialization. Pick your focus area, concept art, animation, visual effects, or technical art, and showcase mastery there. The broad knowledge gets you promoted; the great skill gets you hired.
Philosophical Musing: The Art of Constraint
A slot machine seems like just illustrations and animations. Scratch the surface, and you find motion design systems, emotional character rigging, legibility optimization for aging eyes, brand consistency across weekly releases, and seamless integration of 2D art with 3D Unity pipelines.
The constraints that seem limiting, the repetitive format, the conservative player base, and the business imperatives actually create the walls that force people to excel.
Similarly, AI appears to simplify art creation: type a prompt, get an image. But professional deployment requires understanding model training, style consistency, pipeline integration, technical optimization, and when to override the algorithm with human judgment. It's adding another layer of complexity to master.
Perhaps the real question isn't whether AI will replace artists, but whether it will force us to finally articulate what makes art human. In a world where everyone has a tool and prompt, things like taste, vision, and emotional resonance become the only differentiators that matter.
Franco's approach offers a framework for any creative profession watching AI encroach on their territory: embrace the tools, maintain the craft, understand the business, never stop learning.
The constraints of casino games taught him that walls exist to be pushed against. Now AI presents the ultimate constraint, and the ultimate opportunity - for all of us.
👉 Read more: How Peter Franco and SciPlay modernized a decade old top grossing franchise
