- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
The gaming world appeared ablaze after the Indie Game Awards announced that it was rescinding the top honors awarded to RPG darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 due to the use of generative AI during development. Sandfall Interactive recently sat down with a group of influencers for a private interview session, where the French studio was probed about recent AI controversies. Game director Guillaume Broche clarified some of the misinformation surrounding the studio and reiterated what other Sandfall developers have said about generative AI usage during interviews held earlier in the year.
Transcription of the Q&A comes courtesy of gaming content creator Sushi, who was one of the handful of influencers who were present at the session. Twitch streamer crizco prefaced his question by recounting the storm surrounding Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios’ admission about using generative AI during game development.
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So if I’m reading it right they basically just tried it out and then decided to not use it, removing anything that used it? I can see how technically that it ‘was used at all in development’, but also seems a lil silly to pull the awards based on it.
They probably should have clarified how they used it a lot earlier, but I also don’t blame them for trying out a new tool.
The game was released with AI assets. The rules required disclosure, and they failed to properly disclose. Whether this was on purpose or by accident, they were disqualified quite fairly. It’s a shame, but fairness must apply equally to all studios.
This is where I am confused. I hear this, but I also keep hearing they used AI to create assets when it was first started development as placeholders for future assets. They were all replaced long before the game was ever released. I also heard that the assets used were stock unreal 5 assets which were AI generated but again replaced later long before the game released. So which is the real story?
They used them as placeholders, they may or may not have been stock ue5 assets, which is another problem altogether. But a few of them were left in game at release, presumably by accident since they were removed 5 days post launch. The game did release with AI assets, even if mistakenly.
Given the test, release and publishing timelines, the 5 days patch was already being actively worked on before the game was released. Had it be a few positions higher on the backlog, nobody would have known.
If this is against Indie GA, then for sure drop the award, but that makes me value less the IGA than the game.
The AI assets were only patched out at day 5 because fans noticed them. The devs likely rolled it into that patch because of the fans catching it in the live game.
The issue at hand, as the article above goes into, is that the devs said that they used no AI at all in developement, which is a condition of the award. They did however, as these assets and the devs themselves comfirmed in various interviews. They lied or at least misled the Indie game awards and violated its conditions.
Revoking the award seems like a pretty reasonable response on the IGA’s part. The game itself can still be a masterpiece, but not one eligble for this award.
It was released with the original placeholder AI assets, but patched out within 5 days. It’s pretty clear that they just missed replacing those assets prior to release.
I don’t know exactly which assets, or exactly how many… but from several article it seems one of them was a newspaper only used in the prologue, that no one would notice without directly looking at it up close, which 99.9% of people would never do, and could easily be overlooked doing final testing for game breaking issues prior to release.
And the failure to properly disclose could easily be explained by them messing around. Early in development, deciding not to use AI, and then forgetting about it. Which also explains it being left in for release accidentally. Updated assets were clearly made, just never replaced.
The disqualification had nothing to do with the assets being there for the release, it was solely about development as mentioned in every statement from the awards. Meaning even if it hadn’t been there at release, they still would have been disqualified. Hard criteria like that which disqualifies any sort of context or consideration is not fair. Especially when we’re talking about cutting edge technologies that teams will obviously be experimenting with before making decisions.
Except that they used the placeholder AI textures so that they would have a functional build to test on. They didn’t just try it and decide it didn’t work. They literally used it produce part of the rough draft and even shipped the game with some of those placeholder textures accidentally still in there. It was actively used in this instance to “do work”.
It wasn’t “well let me see what this looks like… No that’s all wrong… Nevermind”. It was “well let’s get this AI to make some placeholders so we can continue working on this and we’ll slap the real textures in later”. Literally removing work from a human(concept artist), which is the complaint of anti-AI people. Funny enough, I’m pro-AI and even I’m agreeing with the anti-AI people here. You want a “no AI was used” award? Then don’t ever use AI. Simple.
We’re not talking about a development team of 100+ artists here and a company forcing them to work 80 hour crunch weeks leading up to launch like much of the industry.
I don’t know exactly how their 30 or so team members break down for specialties, but I’m willing to bet we’re talking maybe 5 asset artists. Making the tens or hundreds of thousands of concept art pieces, and in game assets. Their time is finite and much better spent working on final assets than making placeholders that will just be replaced later. Experimenting with AI and dripping a placeholder in during month 6 that never gets touched again, and the final asset is made but missed when swapping them in at the end of development isn’t exactly damning
Literally removing work from a human(concept artist)
It’s not really “removing” work from a human, it’s utilizing the time of a very small and limited team more wisely. The AI didn’t replace a human, there was never going to be an additional person hired just to make that placeholder, at worst it just let the existing artists spend more time making final assets.
It is exactly replacing work. Your argument is easy to extend to teams of one solo developer who has finite time and money and it’s easy to see the appeal of AI in general.
I’m also in the AI isn’t that bad camp but it’s pretty clear here they used AI, and rightfully disqualified.
Exactly this. I’m not making a moral judgement, just a logical one. They used AI, thus don’t qualify. Feel free to debate whether that award should be that way, but that’s how it is right now.
That’s not what a concept artist does, concept artists (if they had one) did the work before, game artists are still doing the work while the generated placeholders are in place, no person’s job was compromised by using generated placeholders. That being said, if any placeholder made it into the final game then fuck them.
Ah gotcha, article is just written poorly then.
It was only the "indie’ games award. A small ragtag group that was completely in niche discussions online until they pulled this stunt to get all the gaming outlets to bait about
"omg E33 got an AWARD PULLED???!
Nobody knew or gave a fuck about the “indie” game awards until this happened.
Because this paid off, expect more smaller groups to pull similar ideas to feign “outrage” for exposure
My understanding is that these were also standard placeholder textures from unreal development.
I see no issues here. These AI tools came out during the game’s development. Its not unreasonable to try using new tools upon release. And its reasonable to be unaware of the harms of these new tools before the harms are widely reported on.
If things were as described, this seems fine. They now have a clear policy against AI. People, even in groups can be mistaken and learn and change their ways, which is what appears to have happened here. I can’t fault anyone for making the occasional misstep.
So long as they stick to their commitment to not use AI.
Not only is AI bad it is also bad —
Look I’ve seen the hours those studios and devs put into design… If they want to prototype using a tool? Nobody’s losing a job over that. Its a couple hours saved from doom scrolling though your existing assets looking for something temporary.
Yeah, it slipped out though the cracks. But then how many games are loaded with “Unintended Easter eggs” because people are human. I don’t get it. The event is no more novel than finding an untextured brick off the beaten trail or a picture of a dev left in following an in joke amongst the team.
Those poor artists, its actually a good thing they have AI now, isn’t it?
AI as a monolithic “thing” is bullshit. Fugazi. We relabled a ton of tools like OCR and other pattern recognition engines: “AI” to capitalize on the sheer stupidity of the average investor. Artificial intelligence indeed.
I digress. Tools save time and energy. If a team can prototype a space and become more immersed in their project faster and with less effort - so much the better.
I’m for tools as effort multipliers. My initial statement implied as much. I don’t see us running back to rooms full of women doing math at NASA and discarding the digital equivalent.
Look - everyone is absolutely sick of “AI” being jammed into everything. I get the raw response to it… But the concern isn’t about renamed tools; it’s not about a glorified chatbot being an “ok” facsimile. No company would spend billions on that. If by some chance they could make an automiton that was good enough… That could work without stopping, have no rights, for free. Literally they are gambling everything on a shot at replacing every single worker they currently employ. They don’t want workers. They want slaves. That is short sighted, ignorant, bullshit… which deserves all the hate it gets and more. But that - ain’t this.
What does NASA have to do with the creation of art? Art and science are not the same thing. What might be good for progress technologically, like flying to the moon, might not be good for a different field.
Art is all about the time and energy spent. If Clair Obscure came out of an AI machine that took 3 minutes to create it, most people wouldn’t play it and it wouldn’t have won any awards.
Cutting corners or “saving time and energy” is the opposite of exploring creatively, and these tools are not capable of unique thought or inspiration.
What does NASA have to do with the creation of art? Art and science are not the same thing. What might be good for progress technologically, like flying to the moon, might not be good for a different field.
Reread the comment instead of irrationally reacting before you understand the context. Calculators used to be people. Literally. It was a job. I brought up NASA as an example because, very famously, their “calculators” were part of history… So it should have been well known enough for people to see the parallel. But then I guess ever since moving to digital boards for math we can just downplay all subsequent achievments because the scientists didnt work hard enough.
Art is all about the time and energy spent. If Clair Obscure came out of an AI machine that took 3 minutes to create it, most people wouldn’t play it and it wouldn’t have won any awards.
If I’m not mistaken those artists’ art was well recieved. I find it interesting that so many people seem intent on defining a world they aren’t part of. Wacom tablets are tools, are digital artists not real artists because they don’t use paper?
Know any artists? I know quite a few. I wouldn’t dare inject my preconceptions on their process. Who the fuck am I to tell somone what is or isn’t part of their process. Traditional media, music, …even architects use tools to help iterate on their ideas - and their lives are easier for it.
But please, explain to the class why your ideals supercede their own.
Cutting corners or “saving time and energy” is the opposite of exploring creatively, and these tools are not capable of unique thought or inspiration.
Speaking for everyone? That’s bold. Is that your process or are you just a bobblehead parroting what someone else told you to say?
Oh cool, now I’m an irrational person who reacts quickly. Thats a good start.
Do you even know the point you are trying to make? You make a bunch of preconceptions and then claim you won’t do that, so thats fun too.
You can keep writing nonsense arguments all you want, you aren’t an artist and should probably do what you said and shutup instead of making a bunch of assumptions.
Oh cool, now I’m an irrational person who reacts quickly. Thats a good start.
The full body of your response disregarded the core meaning of what I was saying. You didn’t understand something but just powered on through with your opinion. Which if we can appreciate the irony:
You, like many, are looking to burn a company at the stake over what I would clearly describe as a very polished product… Over an asset that they mistakenly left in. Can you comprehend how batshit insane that is?
My response was measured and pretty on the nose I’d say.
Do you even know the point you are trying to make? You make a bunch of preconceptions and then claim you won’t do that, so thats fun too.
Considering the consistency in what I’ve said in this thread … I’d say I do. As far as me making preconceptions: again I’d recommend you take a look at what I wrote and read it again. (We have a trend developing) I gave my reasons: and I provided the logic behind it. But if you’d like to drag this out: go ahead and show me what my “preconceptions” were. I’ll wait.
You can keep writing nonsense arguments all you want, you aren’t an artist and should probably do what you said and shutup instead of making a bunch of assumptions.
I posted facts, I provided commentary on them, and even provided an example as a parallel. You, by your own words: didn’t understand the example (and made no attempt to), you ignored the nuance of the commentary, and preceded to put your ignorance on full display here.
And apparently you want to complete this nonsense by implying you know me or what I do. I dont recall knowing anyone as dull as you that suffered a headwound … But I’ll jog your memory:
Staring with the key topic:
I’ve signed more NDAs and non-competes for multiple, well known, gaming companies … Than years you’ve existed on this planet. So let’s just say I have “some” industry knowledge.
You mentioned I’m not an artist: another bold claim but… Its broad so let’s cover the bases.
I started my career in design. I’ve worked with 5 color printing presses. I’ve been paid for my work, although digital art, which has been seen by “roughly a country of people” around '04. Not enough for you? I maintain a circle of artist friends, who - over time have filled my home and consequently one of my closets with their works. I am honored and grateful that I’d be trusted with someone’s original blood sweat and tears condensed into a single medium. I’d be forgiven, I think, for speaking on their behalf. If not? They know my handle - they have my number - and know where I live…
They can @ me and tell me to shut up. You can’t.
I could go on but I think I’ve made my point sufficiently in this long post. Go crawl back to the echo chamber from whence you came. If you are capable of critical thought - it has yet to be demonstrated.
No artist gets paid to create placeholder art during development. They get paid for the final art pieces that are used in the game itself. No actual AI art was used in the final game except for a few accidentally included bits that were not correctly replaced with the final art and that issue was corrected. No artists were harmed in the making of this game.
I guess I’ll just take your word for it then.
Any projects i have been on, if i need quick placeholder i take it from some existing library that is filled with free to use textures or i create some bullshit texture name temp.png or removethis_brown.jpg and some real artist comes and makes the final one somewhere down the line, 10-1000 hours later.
I have hard time understanding how creating the temporary texture that is never meant to be seen by end user is different when using generative tool versus paint. Especially when no artist looses their pay check or their spot in the credits.
However I do take offence if somebody uses ai to replace writer, designer, voice actor, or artist of any kind in the final product.
If it doesnt matter then dont use AI for placeholders. What’s the argument here for them?
If its nicer and faster why would somebody not use it?
Want to mention that I really appreciate this reasonable, nuanced perspective of the situation that takes pains to see the humanity in the devs, that they are humans who make mistakes, and not ascribe malice to what can easily be ignorance.
The benefit of the doubt is lost in modern day and it’s nice to see it still being given.
Yeah this is something that keeps getting completely lost in this conversation.
The assets in question were from development during 2022-2023 at the latest. GenAI image tools at that time were extremely primitive compared to what’s out there now - remember DallE-Mini? That’s the kind of thing they were using. And because these tools hadn’t breached containment yet, literally no one was talking about ethical issues yet. Sandfall was basically just experimenting with brand new tech long before it was “good” and long before anyone was talking about it.
Now? It’s good to see them committed to avoiding it. GenAI is a plague and should be treated as such. But 2022-ish was totally different than today.
The screeching over this is absolutely absurd. I can’t believe people don’t have better things to do than harass these people. Absolutely insane.
I have an idea for a game, I know how to code, but I’m clueless about gamedev. Hell yes I will use AI to help me with it. That is if I’ll find time for it, because it will be insane amount of work to have something playable.
Some people seem think that you write a couple of prompts and you can ship it as an early access game.
I think that the amount of love that went into Clair Obscur eclipses any use of AI. If you’re under the impression that background textures they replaced must mean they used AI everywhere else — you must not have played the game.
I’m hard pressed to name a nominee that wasn’t made with love. And it seems weird to insist a game as lauded as E33 needs another awards show genuflection to reaffirm it’s status.
That’s a fair point, Skong was made by like 3 people and it’s probably one of the best games of all time — tons of love in the game.
what the hell is skong
Skongsong, Silkskong - Skong. (Silksong)
I hate AI with a passion. A burning passion. And there is some muddied reporting and stuff with how the Clair Obscure team handled the use of AI but ultimately it does look to be an innocent use.
It does start a slippery slope argument, but I don’t see much wrong with using AI generated textures or models if they are truly truly 100% meant to be replaced by the product ship date. There are many video games that start out with stolen ripped assets as placeholders because it’s a whole lot easier to throw in completed assets that work right now so you can get to your iterative phase of game development a lot sooner.
During game development, there is a lot of wasted effort you need to try to avoid. A game is not fully complete when it is planned out. When you start video game development, you don’t know where you’re going to end. If you do not approach the iterative process of game design carefully, you will end up wasting tons of effort and artist time just for things and features and levels that will never see the final release.
Tldr; I don’t see a big problem with using AI as placeholders but you better fucking be honest about it and they better actually be placeholders
I think the issue is, that they didn’t remove all the assets in the version they submitted for the award. Yes, the assets were later removed, but the version that was used for the awards still had those assets.
I agree with your argument as a whole, but it doesn’t really apply here. There wouldn’t have been an issue if they had indeed replaced the assets with real art in time.
Would have been fine if they’d been up-front about it. Some people still wouldn’t like it, but some people wouldn’t play a game made by French devs. Maybe. I dunno. People are free to have preferences, even if we think they’re weird or don’t agree with them. I think Clair Obscur had a ton of great ideas. Game really wasn’t for me, but I respect the hell out of it. It’s a shame about the genAI. Nice that they’re committing to avoid AI, but they really just need to be honest about what you’re getting. I think if they told people what the AI was used for, it would have gone over better.
They lied or misstated during their submission.
We will never know what would have happened if they had been open and honest.
Depends on the exact scenario.
We’re also dealing with language differences. English is not the developer’s first language. What may seem a clear sentence to a native speaker, could be easily misinterpreted/mistranslated to something similar, but different enough that the answer changes.
It seems that the AI use was early in development, and limited to temporary placeholders that were going to be replaced. Since they were patched out within days of release, that seems to imply they already had replacement assets on hand, they were just missed during final checks before release.
The answer from the devs also changed prior to the awards show that implies that they may have had an updated interpretation of the qualification question or answer. If they thought the question was about AI use in the final product, then accidentally missing a placeholder swap shouldn’t be disqualifying. Likewise, early experimentation with the tech and then deciding not to use it probably should not disqualify either. But if the qualification is a hard yes/no with absolutely no context or consideration whatsoever, then that’s a different outcome, and hence them clarifying for the awards team.
Personally I think the hard limit without any room for consideration or interpretation is a shit qualification. Especially considering that isn’t really the case for most awards. Look at the definition of “indie” for example. There’s a half dozen different interpretations people have ranging from having to be self published, avoiding just large publishers, or just the publisher not having creative influence. That’s a lot of interpretation comparatively.
Seems like an overreaction. Oh well.
No AI in video games, period. We’ve learned when we draw the line the major players push at it until they get what they want. AI benefits the wealthy, no one else. AI data centers are a blight on communities.
But maybe if I use AI I can be wealthy. Sure it is accelerating climate change and will undoubtedly cost lives, but that is a small price to pay for me to horde money like a dragon.
I don’t think the typical person knows how destructive AI is to many things much less effects on local communities where they put data centers.
That’s a pretty reductive take. I consider auto-formatting a form of AI because that’s a function that I ask ChatGPT to do. “Reformat the code” “tidy it up.” But I’m assuming even that is bad to you because ChatGPT was involved. The level of “AI” that the Claire devs used seemed to be on the same level as what I just described. A tool to help get the ball moving but not be the sole engine of the project.
Also, you don’t need to use LLMs from companies like OpenAI or Google, you can just run your own LLM.
We’ve seen this before with horse armor and gambling in video games. If you allow a little they are going to take a mile with it. That point I don’t consider it art anymore. AI is not art.
But I’m assuming even that is bad to you because ChatGPT was involved.
I think it’s bad because it’s a waste of power, unreliable, and would be much slower than an actual deterministic code formatters that already exist.
You‘ll need some AI so NPCs don’t just idle around.
It’s good to have morals, but also to have realistic expectations.
We haven’t been able to stop dlc, micro transaction, gambling… I don’t think we would be able to stop AI in videogames.
I have the suspicion that all these quick and fast remakes in HD are pulling AI assets as crazy to be able to have results quickly and cheap.
Going too hard with these devs, which doesn’t seem like bad people won’t ever change what EA. Ubisoft, Nintendo or any big player will do. It would only hurt this small studio for nothing.
If that’s the case I’ll find another hobby. I’m tired of compromising myself because well they get away with it. AI Bros can blow me.
You do you. I’ve been decades doing political activism. I just advice to keep expectations checked because I’ve seen so many people burning themselves out of not being able to achieve unrealistic political goals, and, what’s worse, ending up picking on small innocent people because they are the only ones they can impose their will on.
It’s good to keep making people conscious of the dangers of AI. But knowing what is expected, for yourself, and trying not to target people won’t deserve being targeted our of misdirected anger.
My best approach is taking a constructive approach. Do something by hand myself and enjoying it.
You’re talking to me like I haven’t been through decades of disappointment and in other areas. Me cutting things off is the last straw and thing I can readily do. Be it someone who says “welfare queens should die” to AI used for media. I know you cannot rightfully get away from supporting Amazon or that you have a choice of a soulless, big box store to buy at anymore. Just because I have to do so to maintain my ability to live doesn’t mean I won’t try to inform others about it and get them on my side. I’m just less patient with supreme levels of bullshit anymore.
This controversy is going to look so dumb in 5 years
(when, for example, UE6 has been partly coded using AI)
UE6 doesn’t exist, it’s ‘UE for Fortnite’ now.
it was dumb from the getgo
That’s like claiming that because we invented steam engines and automated production lines there won’t be any handmade products ever made.
Turns out not only there are, many people go out of their way to support the people making them rather than purchasing the automated one.
I won’t buy AI products. And if it’s ever ambiguous to me if you used it, I’m not buying.
deleted by creator
This isn’t about code!
Yeah it’s about ethics in video game awarding
good!
“Will”
lol
The people still defending them is sad. If you give them even a single pass, they will take it for granted. Be glad atleast someone is trying to set a precedent.
Also this game has to be the most polarising one this year. People that played it love it to death and the other well on a lot of social media are now hating it to death(they’re probably salty because of the game awards).
The downvoted prove it
Isn’t ai pretty decent as a coding assistant? Don’t understand what all this fuss is about. I wouldn’t be using Linux if I didn’t have ai to assist me with coding
What does using Linux and AI coding have to do with each other
I don’t know about y’all but I found Linux uses terminal a bunch and I don’t understand the language.
Using a Linux terminal and coding are extremely different things.
I mean if he was saving each one liner in a file and running them from the terminal there wouldn’t be confusion
I mean, as someone who is not tech savvy at all, I think it’s fair to label the Linux commands as coding from a layman’s perspective?
I played the game very shortly after release and I read all the newspapers. There was a lot of storytelling going on in them and they definitely weren’t this. Was some prerelease build or placeholder texture? Because if so, this controversy is pedantic, puritanical, witch-hunting garbage, and I say that as someone who is violently anti-AI.
Afaik, they patched it 5 days after release, so depends on how shortly after release you played.
Placeholder textures that got taken out a few days after release. Also I agree with you as well.
That’s exactly what I would expect AI would say.
