# GameXpert-Bench: How Far Are Coding Agents from Expert Game Development?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.21833 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21833/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 13 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Aug 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Software engineering coding agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/software-engineering-coding-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [GameDevBench: Evaluating Agentic Capabilities Through Game Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11103/) (2026)
- [GameCraft-Bench: Can Agents Build Playable Games End-to-End in a Real Game Engine?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.17861/) (2026)
- [OpenGame: Open Agentic Coding for Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.18394/) (2026)
- [GUI Agents for Continual Game Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28258/) (2026)
- [SWE-Together: Evaluating Coding Agents in Interactive User Sessions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29957/) (2026)
- [WebGameBench: Requirement-to-Application Evaluation for Coding Agents via Browser-Native Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17637/) (2026)
- [VideoGameQA-Bench: Evaluating Vision-Language Models for Video Game Quality Assurance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15952/) (2025)
- [PlayCoder: Making LLM-Generated GUI Code Playable](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.19742/) (2026)
- [GameGen-Verifier: Parallel Keypoint-Based Verification for LLM-Generated Games via Runtime State Injection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07442/) (2026)
- [GameEngineBench: Evaluating Coding Agents on Real C++ Runtime Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03525/) (2026)
- [GBQA: A Game Benchmark for Evaluating LLMs as Quality Assurance Engineers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02648/) (2026)
- [Game Development Software Engineering Process Life Cycle: A Systematic Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.08527/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [AI for Games in the Foundation Model Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16679/) (2026)
- [GameASG-Bench: Benchmarking Autonomous Software Generation for Game Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21293/) (2026)
- [GameReplica: A Benchmark for Black-Box Visual Game Replication by Vision-Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22308/) (2026)
- [CraftBench-UE: Deterministic Evaluation for Coding Agents in Unreal Engine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.23142/) (2026)
- [SWE-Game: Can Coding Agents Build the Games We Want?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33678/) (2026)
- [A2Z GameSpec-Bench: How Faithfully Can Coding Agents Generate Games from Game Design Specifications?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39564/) (2026)
- [GAMEGO: Training Game-Dev Agents with Synthetic Trajectories Anchored in Real-World Assets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.06910/) (2026)
- [Recursive Game Creator: An Agentic Product-Level Experience-Oriented Game Harness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08621/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent large language models (LLMs) can operate as coding agents that build complete games from natural language requests. Game development is especially demanding because program logic, visual and audio content, interfaces, interaction and playability must function together in one executable artifact. Measuring this capability therefore requires evaluation of both game product and the development process. Existing benchmarks often assess the game development capabilities of LLMs by evaluating the final artifact or an isolated development stage. Our analysis of complete human-agent development trajectories identifies three stages that together span the lifecycle of game development with a coding agent: initial game generation, bug diagnosis and repair, and optimization over multiple turns. Therefore, we introduce GameXpert-Bench, which operationalizes the three lifecycle stages as three complementary benchmark tracks. GameGen evaluates complete game creation from a single request in an empty workspace. GameFix evaluates diagnosis and repair when defects are reported or left for the agent to discover. GameOpt evaluates cumulative optimization through request chains seeded by real development trajectories between users and agents. We evaluate each track using live game interaction, deterministic behavioral tests, or final product criteria with regression checks. The suite contains 97 generation tasks across 11 genres; 100 repair tasks from 50 game levels verified by humans, each with 19-27 injected bugs; and 17 optimization chains with six turns and 102 requests. Across the three tracks, current agents are more reliable at producing playable foundations and implementing explicit requirements than at discovering defects, verifying runtime behavior, and preserving functionality across changes.