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.
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?
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.