At this year’s CES, Razer doubled down on AI, showing off a wave of new products built around it. The lineup included Project AVA, an AI desk companion, Project Motoko, a gaming headset positioned as “wearable AI,” and the Razer Forge AI Dev Workstation, a developer-focused PC designed for AI computing.
Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan also took the stage for a live episode of The Verge’s "Decoder" podcast with editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, where he addressed the growing backlash from gamers over AI’s role in game development. Tan didn’t mince words about the rise of “AI slop,” but he made it clear he still believes AI can be a net positive — especially when it comes to speeding up development. He even argued that, despite the noise online, most gamers ultimately want smoother, faster game releases too.
Min Liang-Tan says AI could make game development faster, easier and less demanding
During their one-on-one conversation, Patel brought up Razer’s plan to invest $600 million into AI over the next couple of years, and asked Liang-Tan how he responds to the growing aversion to AI from both gamers and game developers. Liang-Tan didn’t dismiss the backlash, but he made it clear he sees AI tools as a net positive — especially when they’re used to support developers, not replace them.
“What we aren’t against, at least from my perspective, are tools that help augment or support, and help game developers make great games,” he said. He pointed to practical examples like AI-assisted QA, arguing that if AI can help developers test games faster, catch bugs sooner and clean up small mistakes, that’s something everyone should be rooting for. “If we could get game developers to have the opportunity to create better, to check through typos and things like that, to create better games, I think we all want that.”
That mindset tracks with Razer’s bigger AI push. The company is reportedly hiring 150 AI scientists as it expands its footprint in the AI gaming space, and Liang-Tan highlighted one project in particular: an AI “QA companion” designed to make bug reporting less painful for testers by automatically filling out forms as issues are logged.
For Liang-Tan, that’s the real promise of AI in gaming — not replacing the human side of creativity, but taking the tedious parts off developers’ plates so they can build better games. “The way that we see it is that AI is a tool to help game developers make better games,” he said, adding that he feels strongly about protecting human creativity while figuring out where AI can genuinely improve the process.
Liang-Tan looks down on all things 'AI slop'
While those in the gaming industry and gamers as a whole may not be all that enthusiastic about the rosy future Liang-Tan paints as it pertains to AI in gaming, we’re confident that those two groups can agree with his comments about the flood of AI slop hitting everyone’s timelines.
“I think we’re unhappy with generative AI slop, right?” he asked. “Just to put it out there. And that’s something that I’m unhappy with. Like any gamer, when I play a game, I want to be engaged, I wanna be immersed, I wanna be able to be competitive. I don’t want to be served character models with extra fingers and stuff like that, or shoddily written storylines, so on and so forth. I think for us, we’re all aligned against gen AI slop that is just churned out from a couple of prompts and stuff like that.”
Bottom line
Looking at the current gaming landscape reveals several major development studios either going all-in on AI or ignoring it altogether. Razer is clearly in the former group, as its CEO’s comments make abundantly clear.
With three upcoming AI gaming products on the way, a massive investment in the technology, and a podcast episode full of encouragement for AI on behalf of Liang-Tan, Razer has its sights set on making AI in gaming more accessible and acceptable.
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