Clair Obscur won multiple awards but used generative AI art as placeholders during production.
The Indie Game Awards revoked Clair Obscur’s Debut and Game of the Year after the AI disclosure.
IGAs reassigned the awards (Blue Prince, Sorry We’re Closed) and reignited debate on gen-AI use.
I don’t see why this is such a big deal?
It’s more that it wasn’t disclosed when asked which was disqualifying.
because people’s anti-AI furor is totally irrational and becoming a purity test that any/all ai ever is morally irredeemable.
despite the fact that many such techniques tools have been used for decades in game dev… they just weren’t branded as ‘ai’.
but you are sober, not an anti-ai crusader.
They lied on the application and said no AI was used.
Agreed, the assets did make it to production, but were replaced in a patch 5 days later. That definitely seems like it was placeholders that just got missed. Which happens, especially for a new small studio releasing their first game.
GenAI being used for temporary placeholders is arguably a correct use case for it. Especially with a smaller development team. If you have a limited number of artists, having them spend time crafting unique placeholders that will be replaced is a poor use of their time and talents that would otherwise be spent working on final art that will actually be in the released game. That is a 100% valid use case scenario for it, as long as the assets are replaced for the launch. And missing a few and fixing that within a week is entirely understandable, not something they should be indicted for.
There is some concern about the exact wording I’ve seen in various articles. Some say that Sandfall told the awards that GenAI wasn’t used in the development, but the articles don’t use a specific quote on their side, and then later saying it was used for placeholder assets. They seem to imply that Sandfall lies about the use to qualify, then later came clean. I’m wondering if that is simply miscommunication, potentially language issues, about the final game not using GenAI. Just because people speak multiple languages, that doesn’t mean that they understand nuanced differences in meaning when not using their native language. I can see the difference between the final game release and overall development being misunderstood depending on the exact wording used.
Why don’t they just use a grey box as placeholder? Or a photo of John Oliver?
There’s a quote in the text that explains it: “When it was submitted for consideration, a representative of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.”
I’m utterly indifferent both on the merits of the game (it’s OK but I’m not spellbound) and genAI in development (as long as it doesn’t make it into the finished product) – just pointing out that those were the rules that Sandfall agreed to.
https://www.indiegameawards.gg/faq
Because many people believe any use of gen AI is unethical due to how it was created, in addition to how the people in charge are using it.
In other words, using it in any capacity is a bad look to a lot of creatives. And other rational people who can foresee the devastating impact it’s going to have on art of all types, government, and society at large.
Especially since “later” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here given that it was literally within days.
at that point why even use AI at all instead of some other basic filler assets?
Why not? If the tools weren’t available, they’d have used stock art or something super basic and crappy looking, which would’ve been just as good as a placeholder. But the tools were available.
In 2025 it makes sense for companies to have policies against using generative AI tools even for stuff like this because of the systemic effects of normalized use. But in 2022, it wouldn’t have been a thing. Nobody would have thought twice about it. Just a neat new thing that does the job.
They didn’t know it was forbidden. /s
Because there is no way to ethically use the AI we have today. I’m not saying that machine learning itself is unethical; I really enjoy machine learning, been plodding around with it for almost a decade at this point. The problem is that when you use the AI systems on the market, you’re directly supporting corporations that mean you harm.
The argument that it was just used for placeholder assets doesn’t really hold, because it was used at all. You could just as easily have thrown something together in paint and used that as a placeholder. When designing levels you put them together with basic building blocks, you don’t need half-arsed AI generated textures for this. Using AI generated textures and whatnot increases the risk of it ending up in-game.
How can you justify charging for this?
The corporations pushing this tech are looking to strip you of rights, they are bribing government officials, they are ruining the local environment of wherever they put up their datacentres, they’re increasing the risk of blackouts right in a season where more people need electricity to stay warm and healthy. They steal, they infringe on copyrights, they invade your privacy.
Like, they’re actually just plain evil. Using their stuff means you’re supporting evil one way or another. It doesn’t make you evil, but it makes you complicit.
It means AI was used to replace work hours from humans. That’s kind of the whole point of anti AI.
Also, to go a bit extreme on an extrapolation of this: ai makes game and all assets. Humans then replace everything with non AI things that look pretty much the same and then say it isn’t an AI game.
It was placeholder art. They didn’t reduce the artist hire because they weren’t going to have the artist make orange boxes and MSpaint character icons.
The reductio ad absurdum is equally silly the other way. “Does the seeded algorithmic generation of a cloud texture disqualify anything that uses it as AI???” This is a debate stage level talking point, and is unconvincing in reality.
Gamers need something to screech about.They always need to be bitching about something and then complain they don’t have time to play anymore when it’s really just their depression and shitty entitled attitude ruining their hobbies.
Because it’s not a big deal, and IGA are technopuritans who can no longer be taken seriously.