IGF jurors reject games with generative AI, House House admits minimal LLM use in Big Walk
Independent Games Festival jurors (including Sam Barlow and Lena Raine) refused to vote for games with generative AI. In response, studio House House admitted that it used an LLM for less than 0.1% of the code in the game Big Walk, mainly for debugging, and apologized.
A group of Independent Games Festival (IGF) jurors published a statement saying they will not vote for games using generative AI to any degree. Among the signatories are Telling Lies and Immortality creator Sam Barlow and Celeste composer Lena Raine. In the statement, the jurors say this year's IGF submissions were excellent, but they also noted a significant increase in the number of games developed with the help of generative AI tools, which sparked intense discussion and disagreement among the jury without a unified consensus. According to the statement, generative AI has negative impacts, and AI-generated code is no exception to these. The jurors also noted that some of their colleagues were discouraged from signing the statement by fear of professional consequences.
One of the titles mentioned was the game Big Walk by studio House House, the creator of Untitled Goose Game. In response, the studio published a statement saying it had used AI sparingly in the final phase of development to solve difficult technical problems and bugs. According to the company, snippets from LLM chatbot responses, used as a starting point for modifying the game's code, appeared in substantially less than 0.1% of Big Walk's code, and they otherwise did not use generative AI during development. According to the studio, the main purpose was tracking down solutions to problems with third-party software, for example modifying code suggested by an LLM chatbot to fix a shadow issue in the Unity engine, and only after extensive investigation of their own and consultation with a Unity engineer.
According to its statement, House House disclosed its AI usage as part of its IGF submission, but did not disclose it on the game's Steam page, since that platform does not require disclosure of the use of code or chatbots. The company also stated that at the time Big Walk was developed, it had no established policy on AI, which it described as a failure, and promised to create more comprehensive rules in the future. It emphasized that this was only minimal use, not an endorsement or an argument for deploying AI tools, and expressed concern that even voluntary disclosures of this kind could contribute to normalizing the technology.
Why it matters
The case shows that the gaming community and part of the professional jury now actively sanction even marginal use of generative AI, regardless of scope. For development studios and companies, this means a real risk of reputational damage or exclusion from awards if they lack a clear, pre-communicated policy on AI tools. For individual creators and developers, it highlights the value of transparency when using AI in professional work, even when it accounts for a small share of the final work.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
For individual developers and creators, the case shows that even marginal, minor use of AI tools - here under 0.1% of the code - can trigger professional criticism and pressure for transparency, including a risk for jurors who are afraid to publicly express their position.
For a business
The case shows the risk of reputational damage for studios and companies that have no policy for disclosing AI usage, even when the scope of use is minimal; the lack of a policy can lead to additional apologies and pressure from the community or jurors.
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Event sources
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