In Proceedings of Foundations of Digital Games
What game developers actually want from procedural level generation tools
Academic research has produced numerous innovative PCG techniques, yet procedural level design remains unevenly adopted across the game development community. To understand why, we conducted a comprehensive survey of 120 game development professionals examining what developers actually experience when working with procedural tools. The survey covered current tool usage, adoption barriers, technical preferences, and future needs across level designers, game designers, technical artists, environment artists, programmers, and researchers. We present and analyze the survey responses using various techniques and visualizations. In addition, we developed an interactive online tool for anyone to explore patterns across demographic data segments and draw their own interpretations. Two significant patterns emerge from the data. First, a statistically significant adoption gap exists between artists and designers. Artists use procedural generation far more frequently than designers. Second, multiple survey questions examining developer preferences for generative AI methods reveal consistent prioritization of creative control and process transparency over automation. These findings point to an opportunity to expand PCG adoption by reducing technical barriers for designers while aligning tool design with observed practitioner priorities.
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@inproceedings{bib:endrovski:2026,
author = { Endrovski, Bojan and Bidarra, Rafael },
title = { What game developers actually want from procedural level generation tools },
booktitle = { In Proceedings of Foundations of Digital Games },
year = { 2026 },
publisher = { ACM },
doi = { 10.1145/3815598.3815682 },
url = { https://publications.graphics.tudelft.nl/papers/848 },
}