AI just cost ‘Clair Obscur’ its GOTY award, and the game that replaced it might have the same problem

The RPG game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has lost its two major awards after the Indie Game Awards found out the game used AI during development. The studio behind the game, Sandfall Interactive, had won both Game of the Year and Best Debut Game on December 18, but those wins have now been taken away.

The IGA posted a video on Bluesky yesterday announcing that the game is now disqualified. This is a big problem for both the game’s reputation and the awards process. The main issue is that the IGA has a strict policy against generative AI. 

According to PC Gamer, Mike Towndrow from the IGA nomination committee said the organization talks about this throughout the year when looking at possible nominees and does not allow any games that use generative AI. However, the game that replaced Clair Obscur has also been accused of using AI. 

The developers gave conflicting statements about AI use

What makes this situation worse is that the developers seemed to change their story. Towndrow said that Sandfall Interactive had originally agreed that no generative AI was used when they submitted the game. But on the day of the awards premiere, the studio admitted that generative AI was actually used in making the game. The timing of this admission was shocking.

This is not the first time people questioned the game’s content. Just days after Clair Obscur came out in April, fans noticed textures that looked like they were made by AI. The developer quietly removed those textures and called them a placeholder texture in a patch note. AI technology has been rapidly advancing across different industries, with companies racing to integrate new AI capabilities into their products.

The studio has given mixed messages about AI all year. In June, cofounder François Meurisse said in an interview that the studio used some AI, but not much. Later, that same article was updated to say there is no generative AI in the game at all. These constant changes raise questions about what the studio is hiding.

The IGA has now announced new winners. Sorry We’re Closed is the new Best Debut Game winner, and Blue Prince is the new Game of the Year. While this is great news for those teams, most attention is still on the controversy. The use of AI features has become increasingly common, even showing up in everyday consumer devices like doorbells.

The controversy grew more intense, however, when it was claimed that Blue Prince also used AI in its production. An article published by The Escapist, which was later edited, claimed that generative AI was used during development and was still present in the final version of the game.

This prompted a fiery response from the game’s publisher Raw Bomb on X, confirming there was no use of AI at any stage of production. The use of generative AI is now one of the most debated topics in gaming, and we can expect to hear more cases like this in the future.