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.
People keep saying the problem ‘wasnt that they used AI placeholder assets, it’s that they lied on the disclosure’, but boy does that still seem like a reach
When you have dozens of people working on a huge creative project, it would take an almost omniscient creative director to know where every asset in every scene came from with certainty. It isn’t hard to imagine a designer somewhere on the team sneaking an AI asset into a pre-release build and forgetting about it. The fact that it was later disclosed suggests that whoever was applying for the award wasn’t aware of that asset being used and then replaced at the time of submission.
I dont mind having some awards dedicated to genAI-free works, but people really need to stop getting their pitchforks out at every mention, otherwise they risk turning into a lynch mob. This doesnt sound like an intentional omission to me.
I am inclined to agree except it wasn’t intentionally later disclosed. From my understanding, they gave an interview and mentioned it briefly. If they did end up disclosing it to the awards, it wasn’t until the day that they were announced as the winner. That’s kind of icky.
But I do agree with you that whoever spoke to the award committee probably didn’t even know about it.
Still, there’s a lot of room there for some grace. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to strip them of the award, but the level of outrage I’m seeing in this thread and elsewhere isn’t proportionate to the offense.
People really need to chill with this.
It’s still game of the year in my heart.
Congrats to the new winners for winning on a technicality.
Oh no, they used gen AI filler art which they immediately replaced with human one. They did it the one way they could do it right, let’s demonize them into submission while the flagrant violators get away with murder because why bother?
As someone who hates the AI bubble, this anti AI circlejerk is making me hate the circlejerk more than the bubble. Plan successful?
They lost the awards because they had positively affirmed there was no AI use in production, when the game had AI art in release for customers to see for five days.
They were punished for being dishonest, not for AI.
Edit: I’m sure their game sales already spiked from all the press of winning the awards. They still will benefit.
It’s not because they used AI, it’s because they lied and fraudulently marketed (and continue to fraudulently market) the game as never having used AI.
Stupid fucking luddites.
Lmao go to your favorite website and ask your brain to come up with a better comment.
Not sure why you got so much hate, friend. You’re even technically correct. Emotional, but correct.
It’s not hate, I just think it’s sad when people diminish the work of others, simply because they used a particular tool. It would be like disqualifying an Olympic athlete for training using VR. Just because you don’t like the method they used doesn’t mean that person didn’t still put in the work to get the end result they did.
The point of hunan expression isn’t to have a “tool” do it for you
Oh, ok, so then people should stop using computers to design characters, and go back to pen and paper. Or wait, the pen and paper are a tool too, they should just imagine the character in their mind…
I just think it’s sad when people diminish the work of others
My brother in Christ, that is one major reason people don’t like generative AI.
How does genAI diminish the work of others? It’s simply a tool, and if anything it enhances that work, allowing someone to rapidly prototype and develop their ideas.
I was in support of you, but I think in general it’s much better for the long version of your comment, it makes people less emotionally charged into judging :)
I know full well that the long version will be down voted as well. There is no nuance with those who have made up their mind about AI, and any use of it, for any reason, is despicable to them.
In some sense, you are doing the same by believing the whole group is against you, and therefore going less into a discussion and just swinging anger.
Made me think of this old song lol https://youtu.be/DwORzQxAXmU
Sandfall Interactive further clarifies that there are no generative AI-created assets in the game. When the first AI tools became available in 2022, some members of the team briefly experimented with them to generate temporary placeholder textures. Upon release, instances of a placeholder texture were removed within 5 days to be replaced with the correct textures that had always been intended for release, but were missed during the Quality Assurance process
Not exactly a massive AI slop problem, right?
One of the rules was no AI during development, they voluntarily claimed they didn’t use it.
They used it. Sure, in a minor way, but they used it and got caught.
The rules are the rules. Some chess events ban caffeine, we might laugh and say drinking a cup of coffee is not a big deal - but they’d be disqualified.
The rules are the rules
This has the same validity as an argument as “I was just following orders” or “I am just doing my job” or “I told you I would hit you in five seconds, so you did know” same reasoning behind teachers that throw students out for being 5 minutes late
We are animals…
If you don’t enforce rules then you don’t have rules. You should have learned that dealing with all those teachers who threw you out for being late in school.
There’s nothing to learn from teachers with fragile ego
Sounds like an excuse for bad behavior to me.
Exactly what a teacher with fragile ego would say
This has the same validity as an argument as “I was just following orders”
Ok, reality check: we are talking about video game awards. Calm down.
That doesn’t change the claim. Following the rules for the sake of following the rules instead of understanding why they are there is a defining trait of this sheep behavior.
My guy, the whole “I’m just following orders” is about people harming others because they were ordered to do so, it’s not about acting as a group in general ffs.
But this is like banning someone from a chess event because they experimented with caffeine 3 years ago and accidentally left a single Nespresso pod in their bag. That they also immediately threw in the trash when they noticed
Is there a rule that chess players can’t train with caffeine?
Of course not. It’s not at all the same.
The indie game awards rule is equivalent to my example.
No AI can be used anywhere in the production in any capacity ever.
It’s not just “the released game can’t contain AI generated content”
If we’re following the chess analogy the developers are allowed to use AI to train their skill but not to aide in the actual competition.
Not according to this specific award. It’s all use of all ai during the whole production. Not just released assets.
Did I stutter? Aiding in the production is aiding in the competition.
I don’t understand your argument at all. Your first comment seems to disagree with the ban, but this one explicitly agrees with it.
Your example is weird because it doesn’t exist. There is no restrictions on how chess players train, only how they compete. All you’re doing is building a strawman, not an analogy.
And to be clear, they didn’t get banned for using AI. They got banned for lying about using AI. You can agree or disagree with the rule itself, but it’s not debatable whether it was in place when they entered the contest or whether the studio lied about it.
Nope they got banned for using. That’s the rule of the awards
Or like they submitted a game to an award that said no AI in development, said they didn’t use AI in development, when in reality they did.
Because they thought they didn’t and found out 3 year old in-house AI test assets ended up in the release version. And promptly replaced them with the actual art done by their own actual artists, the ones who did the AI experiment.
That’s fine, but they did use AI in development, so whether or not they removed the assets they should not be included in this award category.
You do acknowledge that “using AI during development” is a massive thing to ban games for.
How can they check for that in the future?
it’s irrelevant whether you agree with the rule or not… the award is for games that didn’t use AI during development. the game should not have originally been in contention for the award
i tend to agree this is the right way to use AI assets, but this isn’t the award for them… it doesn’t matter if it was accidental, if it was removed before release, or anything else
Almoat… its like the rule said you cant have used caffeine for the past 5 years and you used some 3 years ago and then lied about it.
If we’re following the chess analogy the developers are allowed to use AI to train their skill but not to aide in the actual competition.
Right. The far bigger problem is how trash of an engine Unreal5 is, and all the forced processing making things look and run like shit. But that’s not just a Clair Obsur problem.
Can I say I agree, very disappointed when I loaded up the game that I had to change so much to make it essentially playable on a high refresh rate 2k monitor. After disabling all the filters and turning off upscaling, I have it working fine but wow its like they made something beautiful and have no idea how to allow people to see it.
After all the comparisons to Larian, I thought I’d see a more competently assembled package with Clair Obscur, but at least everything else is great besides the game engine and graphics settings.
Apparently only one other person in these comments actually read the article. They failed to disclose that the game was released with AI assets. Whether this action was purposeful or not, their submission was disqualified according to the rules. That’s really all there is to it.
Yup, people prefer to enrage themselfes, the facts don’t matter anymore.
Yeah despite it being one of my favorite games (not just of this year), full disclosure is important. Losing that award doesn’t make the game any worse or take away my enjoyment of it.
People pointed out that the game did use AI-generated assets as placeholders, but then replaced them with human-created assets later.
I don’t see why this is such a big deal?
It’s more that it wasn’t disclosed when asked which was disqualifying.
They lied on the application and said no AI was used.
I mean, there was no AI in the finished product.
Read the article:
“The Indie Game Awards have a hard stance on the use of gen AI throughout the nomination process and during the ceremony itself. 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.”
It is wasn’t about what was released, the rules of the awards had restrictions on using AI in development and the developers lied about not using it when they submitted themselves for the award. Gen AI is bad, but lying about using it is much worse.
GenAI being bad or not is irrelevant for this issue.
If they had a rule that you had to wear purple polka dotted pants and they found out you didn’t, they are within their rights to strip the awards.
It sounds like you don’t agree with the rules as written.
As they should
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.
it’s kinda irrelevant to the make it to production part though: the rule is no gen ai used during development… there’s no ifs, buts, or maybes here: there definitively was, and nobody is denying that
Why don’t they just use a grey box as placeholder? Or a photo of John Oliver?
Could it make testing less conclusive? Part of testing is to see whether people actually enjoy the game. And I’d conjecture immersion-breaking placeholder assets could lead to worse testing reviews.
I would strongly agree with you. I know so many people that will completely discount a game if the graphics isn’t bleeding edge “photorealistic”-adjacent.
I know a bunch of friends that love base building, automation, logistics, trains, programming and so on. But they completely discounted even trying a game like Factorio because “the graphics are ugly”… Instead opting for Satisfactory or similar. Satisfactory is an awesome game too, but it lacks a lot of technical depth compared to Factorio.
There’s a lot of other games where the atmosphere or art direction are also hugely important, and a grey or black/purple checkered texture just doesn’t convey the same feeling as if something looks like a rusty iron pipe.
I can see many situations where either AI generated placeholder textures or just textures from an asset library could help a lot with prototyping, and play testing.
From my experience of selling and apartment almost a decade ago, it’s clear that many people lack imagination. We heard that several people didn’t want to buy the apartment because they didn’t like the furniture… which wasn’t even part of the sale, or didn’t like the colour of the walls… Which they could of course just paint over… So I can definitely see that many playtesters would have trouble envisioning the game, if all the textures are solid grey, and the models are square.
I’m however also very much dislike the current state of things where developers will AI generate huge portions of the game and assets releasing it as the final product. It’s a shame that the craft of artists is getting dumped and replaced by AI gen…
In my book, the developers can use AI as much as they want, but they should clearly declare where AI gen has been used. Then the consumer can make an informed decision of whether to support it or not. I would personally avoid games that ship AI assets, but wouldn’t at all have a problem with the developer using AI assets during development and prototyping.
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.
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.
In light of Sandfall Interactive confirming the use of gen AI art in production on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination. While the assets in question were patched out and it is a wonderful game, it does go against the regulations we have in place.
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.
Because there is no way to ethically use the AI we have today
They used it in 2022 tough and didn’t replace the assets by accident.
Hmmm, I’m having a hard time choosing between the Seerup and Puxoca Coun. Does either come with a free side of Sseeiiqers by any chance?
I asked the guy at the register for SCIZES SUCIT and got banned from the store. 😤
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.
I loooove how divided people are on this and hopefully people come to realize it isn’t black and white. Replacing work hours from humans is precisely why we have tools, why we have technology in general. I don’t buy that angle as a valid criticism of AI at all.
I mean, ai is definitely costing people their jobs, trashing the environment, increasing electricity costs, causing stupid high silicone costs, and will be used to create misinformation and push narratives like nothing else before it. But there’s also pretty much zero chance of stopping any of it. The ultra wealthy control the world. It’s a tool to make them money and gain control of information and agendas.
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.
It was placeholder art that needed to be there. It shaved off work hours. If it didn’t, then why would they have used it in the first place?
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.
Or just don’t lie about something that is against the rules for the contest you’re entering? Seems easy enough.
I’m not sure it was a lie, it’s the kind of thing that’s so minor it’s easy for someone on the marketing team to just not know about.
It’s like if a snack company put out a message saying they used no animal products and then later found out that a derivative of beeswax was used to lubricate some of the mechanisms in their packing machine.
If you want to be absolutely inflexible and refuse to allow any exceptions to the rules, no matter the circumstances, that’s fine. But you’ve gotta recognize the irony in that line of reasoning being more machine-like than human.
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.
Barely anyone in this topic acknowledges the actual reason: They lied about not using genAI and were disqualified when the lie was revealed.
BLUE PRINCE! WOO!
I’m not a fan of gen AI either, but this feels like taking it a bit far. Getting pissed over them using gen AI for placeholder art, that was then replaced by human art in the release feels utterly ridiculous.
It’s probably more that they said that they did not use gen AI when they did, even if it was quickly patched out
It says they didn’t use it in the development of the game, which the representative most likely took as coding. This disqualification is just dumb as shit.
It’s a gray zone in my opinion.
The final art will still be based on the AI (read: stolen) art. Where do you draw the line between a unique piece of art and copying existing art?
God forbid anyone uses anyone else’s art as a reference. /s
The answer to your question is whether they drew the art/wrote the code themselves. Ie. Not tracing or just renaming variables.
The final art will still be based on the AI (read: stolen) art.
You’re making assumptions both of the developers’ workflow, and of their AI models.
Rivers don’t flow up the mountain, let’s not kid ourselves that there is “innocent” AI usage in this context.
I don’t understand why they need GenAI for placeholders; part of the fun of the creative process is coming up with fun, crude drawings that are clear placeholders.
I heard being a video game developer is easy and fun. Just dicking around all day, never dealing with deadlines, not having to pay a staff $200000 dollars a week with investors down your throat.
If you’re working within such constraints you’re not an indie developer and thus not eligible for indie game awards anyway.
Regardless of that, prompting for AI textures is more work than just popping on a placeholder asset anyway. You’re not saving time, particularly not if you don’t have a good way to manage what is and isn’t placeholder thus have to hunt down all the AI generated placeholders before you hit production.
It’s a waste of time.
Yes you are. Just small scale. Unless you’re working solo and not taking a pay cut development costs are huge. It’s amazing how you people will also just inject your own opinion on usefulness. I guess you’re just a better artist than everyone on the team. You should start your own studio, you seem to have every skill you need and have mastered the efficient dev process.
Yes, I do speak from the stance of a professional developer. In what fantasy world are you residing in where a small-scale indie studio has the ability to burn nearly $10 million a year on staff alone?
Plus they probably wouldn’t have forgotten to change them before production if they were quick and bad drawings
You would think that but there have been many examples of placeholder textures getting missed and ending up in shipped games.
Because games are about the feels. And having crudely drawn dicks doesn’t exactly make QA work easy.
Also there’s lighting, reflections etc that need that shit to be close to real.
For the same reason movies use stand-ins to adjust lights and not a can of beans, which would be more fun
So are they getting a different award for using AI and ending up with something that isn’t slop?
A more valid reason would have been cause they aren’t an indie company.
Yes they are
I see many fans of the game defending the use of AI.
Firstly, the game has already received enough awards, so it doesn’t matter, and secondly, you would all protest against another game studio if it used AI…
In short: Fuck AI and fuck everyone who advocates/tolerates its use!
I 100% disagree with you and people saying it has too many awards. If it deserves an award, it deserves an award.
But holy shit ai is hot condensed bad. I don’t care if your argument is “but it’s only the fine details of the textures”, maybe pay somebody to do that for you, because there’s more than enough fine details in nature and human creativity. Also, ai is essentially entirely based on stolen work, and I don’t give a rat fuck bullshit ounce if 0.00000000000000000000001% of ai is completely ethically designed, trained, powered, sourced, ran, operated, invested, and gives proceeds to the starving children’s fund… that shit doesn’t exist, and if it actually does by some mental gymnastics loophole, it is, by far, an exception to the rule.
Fuck ai and fuck all you people with weakass moral compasses encouraging this irresponsible destructive bane upon society right now and making bad excuses and even lying about it. It doesn’t have to be at all like this.
Frothing at the mouth
Gaming seems like a prime AI use case. Especially AI agents for varying stories.
In where winds meet they use AI for NPC dialogue. Every non-quest NPC had unique dialogue. Probably the best use for AI imho
For now while models cannot run locally it can even generate much dialogue in advance.
Indeed.With the "choices (do not) matter games we have now I would not notice a difference.
Real choices require far too much effort for devs. I see no other option than AI
