World models are rapidly becoming AI’s next frontier, and in this episode we break down why. Host, Alexandra Takei, Director at Ruckus Games, sits down with Pim de Witte, founder of General Intuition and Medal, to explore how billions of gameplay videos can power a new class of embodied agents. Pim explains the fundamental gap between language models, which describe the world, and world models, which simulate the world, capturing how objects and agents move, react, and evolve in space and time. The conversation digs into why video games are an ideal training ground, including but not limited to consistent first-person perspectives, action labels (if you design your data set that way), and optical fidelity that platforms like YouTube can’t provide.

Pim walks through General Intuition’s technical approach, why cross-game training unlocks more human-like behavior, and the specific limitations still unsolved, such as multiplayer consistency, long-horizon coherence, and the cost of large-scale inference. They explore what studios can expect from embodied agents: bots trained on human behavior that they hope to be tunable by designers and ideal for developers who want to embrace and build around this tech to either develop new game genres or make it a bedrock of their production process. If you are interested in learning about a company with a unique approach to world models and embodied agents, this is a must-listen to close out 2025. 

We’d like to thank Lysto for making this episode possible! Lysto is revolutionizing how game development teams collect and act on real player feedback with its AI-powered playtesting insights. Learn more about how you can get bias-free feedback at https://lysto.gg/?utm_source=naavik&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ad

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Sound design by Gavin Mc Cabe