404 : How can we leverage both blockchain and Open Source AI for Games?

At the crossroads of blockchain and open-source AI, 404 is building the infrastructure for a new generation of AI-native games. We sat down with their CEO, Ben James, to explore how these technologies can reshape game development and empower creators.

Flavien (BGA) : Let’s start from the top: How do you define the intersection of blockchain and open-source AI in the context of gaming? What unique opportunities does this convergence unlock for developers and players?

Ben James. I would define the intersection as a permissionless, cryptographically enforced commons where open-source AI models live on chain and are economically incentivised to evolve. What this means for gaming is that we are entering a new genre of AI-native games that will introduce innovations for both developers and players ranging from realtime world generation to personalised experiences to tokenisation and interoperability of User Generated Content.

Q : 404 builds on Bittensor’s decentralized AI network. Why is decentralization critical for the future of AI in games? Why do we need trust, traceability, or fairness in generative content ?

Decentralization is critical for the future of AI and AI is critical for the future of games. Decentralization allows game developers and ultimately players to not be reliant on a centralized entity – this has technical advantages (e.g. there is no single point of failure) and more importantly this has philosophical advantages (e.g. there is no single source of censorship and trust over our content and synthetic intelligence). Decentralization shifts key components of generative design to market-based incentive mechanisms with traceability and permissionless algorithms ensuring players and developers are the owners and agents of their work both now and in the future.

Q : Your Unity plugin turns text prompts into 3D assets using open-source AI. How does blockchain play a role in that pipeline — beyond compute decentralization?

Blockchain provides the incentive layer within our decentralized compute framework. The output of this network (3D assets) have associated metadata to track ownership and authenticity to different participants who helped generate, validate and create the assets. This data can be used by developers to ultimately integrate programmatic revenues or even cross platform compatibility (by storing data like model, seed and prompt). At the moment, this is naissant and evolving meaning that developers who work with the outputs of our tech will have a meaningful impact on determining how strong a role blockchain should play within their specific applications and games.

Q : For indie studios or solo devs, how does combining blockchain and open-source AI lower the barriers to building quality games?

AI won’t replace game developers, but game developers using AI may replace those not using AI. This is because with AI a small indie team or even solo developer is capable of producing so much more content, this is not limited to the 3D world itself – what 404 specifically focuses on – this includes NPCs, narrative / dialogue, level design, animation and much more. The quality of games will still be based on the creativity of the human input – simply using AI won’t make a game higher quality, but it will allow a developer to focus on the creative aspects (e.g. iterating over aesthetic different styles of the world within minutes rather than months) that ultimately will make the game successful.

Q : What new gameplay mechanics or game genres do you think this stack — blockchain + open-source genAI — could make possible?

I think an AI-native gaming genre means at runtime generation, this makes possible larger worlds, more personalized experiences, and more expansive user generated content. It also changes the cost structure and timing of game development to allow AAA quality at indie costs, new business models with programmatic revenues, and AI-focused variants like play-to-train games.

Q : How do you balance open-source principles with commercial viability, especially when deploying on platforms like Unity Asset Store?

I see open source as a community-oriented approach towards AI, helping each other by standing on the shoulders of giants to improve. This isn’t at odds with commercial viability, arguably the opposite especially when we consider blockchain capabilities like programmatic revenues and visibility into tracing authenticity and ownership.

Q : Looking forward, what role do you see 404 playing in shaping a creator-owned, AI-powered game economy?

404 can grow into the foundational technology layer to power creatives in creating and owning immersive 3D worlds (in real time and at runtime), and this isn’t limited to gaming but will shape film, VFX and XR in the future.

Read the full BGA Magazine (EthCC Edition) of July 2025 here.