The indie game community is in disarray over AI and Big Walk

Some Independent Games Festival (IGF) jurors published a statement yesterday saying they would not vote for games that use generative AI in “any capacity.” Soon after, the developer of indie hit Big Walk has published a statement saying it “sparingly” used AI in the “final stretch” of the game’s development to “help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs.”

According to the jurors’ statement, while this year’s IGF entries have been “incredible,” there has been “a significant increase” in the number of games “developed with generative AI tools,” leading to “fairly intense discussion and disagreement” with no “universal consensus.” The statement includes a list of beliefs, including that generative AI has “negative effects,” that AI-generated code is “not an exception to these harms,” and that use of AI tools is…