Darwin’s Demons: Does Evolution Improve the Game?

It is widely assumed that evolution has the potential to make better video games. However, relatively few commercial games have been released that use evolution as a core game mechanic, and of these games only a very small sub-set have shown that evolution occurs as expected and improves game play as intended. Thus, there remains a critical gap between studies showing the clear potential of evolution to improve video games and studies showing that evolution did improve game play in a commercially released game.