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Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

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Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#71

Post by protimewaster »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #64
protimewaster wrote: post #5

I wonder what definition of AI they're using? If you go by the definition in some textbooks (e.g., the definition given in the widely used Russell and Norvig text), basically any code with branches in it counts as AI, and thus nearly any game with any procedurally generated content would run afoul of this AI art rule.

Their FAQ only states: > Games developed using generative AI are strictly ineligible for nomination. I haven't found anything more detailed than that; I'm not sure if anything more detailed actually exists, or needs to.

That's all I've found as well, but, personally, I find that a bit unclear, for a couple of reasons. First, are they saying that the game itself can use generative AI, but it can't be used in the development of the game? So that would mean that if the game itself generates random levels using a generative AI approach, that's allowed, but, if I were to use that same code to pre-generate and manually modify the levels, that wouldn't be allowed because I'm now using generative AI as part of the development process? I.e., I can create a game that itself is a generative AI, but I can't use that AI I've built as part of the development of a downstream game?

And, second, what counts as generative AI? A lot of people wouldn't include procedural generative techniques in that definition, but, AFAIK, there's no consensus on whether traditional procedural approaches should be described as "generative AI".

And a third thing is, if I use an IDE that has generative AI, even for something as simple as code completion, does that run afoul of the rule? So, if I used Visual Studio with its default IntelliCode settings, that's not allowed because it has a generative AI-based autocomplete?

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#72

Post by Hamuko »

thiht wrote: post #59
skibidithink wrote: post #21

The AI witch hunt claims its first victim, apparently over some placeholder textures. https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-19/the-low-cost-c... > Sandfall Interactive further clarifies that there are no generative AI-created assets in the game. When the first AI tools became available in 2022, some members of the team briefly experimented with them to generate temporary placeholder textures. Upon release, insta…

That’s incredibly harsh. A blanket ban on AI generated assets is dumb as hell. Generating placeholder assets is completely acceptable.

The problem of allowing "placeholder AI assets" is that any shipped asset found to be AI is going to be explained away as being "just a placeholder". How are we supposed to confirm that they never meant to ship the game like this? All we know is that they shipped the game with AI assets.

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#73

Post by realusername »

dartharva wrote: post #53
voidfunc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, the AI restriction itself is hilarious. Almost all games currently being made would have programmers using copilot, would they all be disqualified for it? Where does this arbitrary line start from? AI OK: Code AI Bad: Art, Music. It's a double standard because people don't think of code as creative. They still think of us as monkeys banging on keyboards. Fuck 'em. We can replace artists.

> It's a double standard because people don't think of code as creative. It's more like the code is the scaffolding and support, the art and experience is the core product. When you're watching a play you don't generally give a thought to the technical expertise that went into building the stage and the hall and its logistics, you are only there to appreciate the performance itself - even if said performance would ha…

I would disagree, code is as much the product in games as the assets.

Games always have their game engine touch and often for indie games it's a good part of the process. See for example Clair Obscur here which clearly has the UE5 caracter hair. It's what the game can and cannot do and shapes the experience.

Then the gameplay itself depend a lot on how the code was made and iterations on the code also shape the gameplay.

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#74

Post by qbit42 »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #62
andrewstuart wrote: post #41

Well that’s a rule that makes no sense. These awards are behind the times and risk irrelevance. What software in 2025 is written without AI help? Every game released recently would have AI help.

> Every game released recently would have AI help. For indie games in particular, that is very much not true. In fact, Steam has a 'made with AI' label, so it's not even true on that platform.

You think many are built without any assistance for coding? My impression was that people were mostly concerned about game assets like graphics and music

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#75

Post by Hamuko »

spuz wrote: post #32

There is a small irony that the Indie Game Awards rejects nominations of games using AI but The Game Awards does not. It is independent teams of developers who are less likely to be able to afford to pay an artists who may be able to produce something of value with AI assets that they otherwise would not have the resources for. On the other side, it is big studios with a good track record and more investment who are…

There's not that much irony considering how people into indie games are more about the art and craft of video games, whereas The Game Awards is a giant marketing cannon for the video game industry, and the video game industry has always been about squeezing their employees. If they can hire fewer artists and less QA because of GenAI, they're all for it.

Just two days ago there were reports that Naughty Dog, a studio that allegedly was trying to do away with crunch, was requiring employees to work "a minimum of eight extra hours a week" to complete an internal demo.

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mab...

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#76

Post by vanviegen »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #43
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #13

Is anyone else detecting a phase shift in LLM criticism? Of course you could always find opinion pieces, blogs and nerdy forum comments that disliked AI; but it appears to me that hate for AI gen content is now hitting mainstream contexts, normie contexts. Feels like my grandma may soon have an opinion on this. No idea what the implications are or even if this is actually something that's happening, but I think it's…

It feels like a similar trend to the one that NFTs followed: huge initial hype, stoked up by tech bros and swallowed by a general public lacking a deep understanding, tempered over time as that public learns more of the problematic aspects that detractors publicise.

I think this comparison makes little sense, as in the case of AI there is some actual impactful substance backing the hype.

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#77

Post by mvdtnz »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #63
thiht wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s incredibly harsh. A blanket ban on AI generated assets is dumb as hell. Generating placeholder assets is completely acceptable.

I agree, even though I'm not in favour of gen ai. It was a terrible mistake letting placeholder assets get out in the final release, but it shouldn't actually count as shipping AI-generated content in your product.

It literally is shipping AI generated content in the product.

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#78

Post by Hamuko »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #43
blackbrokkoli wrote: post #13

Is anyone else detecting a phase shift in LLM criticism? Of course you could always find opinion pieces, blogs and nerdy forum comments that disliked AI; but it appears to me that hate for AI gen content is now hitting mainstream contexts, normie contexts. Feels like my grandma may soon have an opinion on this. No idea what the implications are or even if this is actually something that's happening, but I think it's…

It feels like a similar trend to the one that NFTs followed: huge initial hype, stoked up by tech bros and swallowed by a general public lacking a deep understanding, tempered over time as that public learns more of the problematic aspects that detractors publicise.

NFTs have way less downsides than LLMs and GenAI, since the main downside was just wasting electricity. I didn't have to worry about someone cloning my voice and begging my mom on the phone for money.

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#79

Post by m-schuetz »

hambes wrote: post #4
danielbln wrote: post #2

I bet if they'd only used AI assisted coding would be a complete non-event, but oh no, some inconsequential assets were generated, grab the pitchforks!

Maybe, but that is a different issue. The use of generative AI for art is being rightfully criticised because it steals from artists. Generative AI for source code learns from developers - who mostly publish their source with licenses that allow this. The quality suffers in both cases and I would personally criticise generative AI in source code as well, but the ethical argument is only against profiting from artists…

Most OS licenses requires attribution, so AI for code generation violates licenses the same way AI for image generation does. If one is illegal or unethical, then the other would be too.

Re: Clair Obscur having its Indie Game Game Of The Year award stripped due to AI use

#80

Post by culturestate »

mvdtnz wrote: post #77
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, even though I'm not in favour of gen ai. It was a terrible mistake letting placeholder assets get out in the final release, but it shouldn't actually count as shipping AI-generated content in your product.

It literally is shipping AI generated content in the product.

> It literally is shipping AI generated content in the product.

When someone goes three miles per hour over the speed limit they are literally breaking the law, but that doesn’t mean they should get a serious fine for it. Sometimes shit happens.

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