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.
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.
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.
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
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
I don’t know. It’s not really up to me to figure that out, either. Companies should self-report on their AI usage.
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…
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.
Barely anyone in this topic acknowledges the actual reason: They lied about not using genAI and were disqualified when the lie was revealed.
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.
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
Over placeholders? Jesus.
I at least understand it if they were actual final assets. Is the worry that they weren’t really placeholders?
Next up, if you used photoshop you’re out because it has AI features that you might have used.
A more valid reason would have been cause they aren’t an indie company.
I suppose this is a warning to any companies who were thinking about disclosing their uses of AI for placeholders
Off topic, but this is why I love Lemmy; Look at this comment section. Many people here have a logical stance, either for or against the genAI use. Both sides are making good points. Reading through the article alongside the comments, my opinion was really teetering. It’s nice to be able to come in with an open mind and be challenged like this.
From what I’ve heard, the placeholders came from some stock Unreal engine textures they used and forgot to replace.
So are they getting a different award for using AI and ending up with something that isn’t slop?
I don’t know anything about this game.
I also know that game awards are a bunch of bullshit so I don’t give a fuck.
Also, I noticed this game is on my wishlist. Huh.
They already got the publicity and award ceremony. Apparently they only provide tickets for members, everybody else had to buy their tickets up to 7k. Fuck those awards anyway…
Congrats to the new winners for winning on a technicality.
… the best kind of correct.
Are the new winners listed of the Indie Game Awards site?
I dont understand the purity tests we are putting artists through
AI is just a tool. It can be used correctly to assist in making a gopd product, or a lazy artist can make slop (a lazy artist will produce crap regardless AI or not)
If its wrong to use AI to make filler material, then is speedtree wrong for allowing environmental artists to take a shortcut and not have to hand craft every tree in their game world?
like, minus all the plagarism and energy use issues. If wre are speaking strictly of artistic integrity or whatever, i dont see the problem in using AI to assist artists (as opposed to outright replacing them)
like, minus all the plagarism and energy use issues.
Pretty sure that’s the primary thing everyone takes issue with. If you removed that most people wouldn’t have as big of a problem with it. There is still a social issue at play in terms of the potential damage generative AI can do to the job market with no real safety nets or long term consideration for the consequences to society and the economy, but most people aren’t even getting that far.
Yeah I think if you removed like…
- The theft and plagiarism
- The privacy infringements
- The government bribes
- The massive energy costs that are leaving people at a risk for blackouts
- The environmental destruction in the areas the datacentres operate
- The complete disregard for the health of the people living around the datacentres
- The constant lying in an attempt to pump up stocks and grab as much money as possible before nuking the economy
- The creepy-ass plans to institute an authoritarian techno-dystopia
- Whatever else I’ve missed on the list
I’d be a lot more positive about it.
The thing is, this is all more or less intrinsically baked together into a fetid seeping mess. Just how you can’t remove the milk from coffee once you’ve put it in, you can’t remove this from the AI we have today. You’ll have to discard the cup and do it over.
Seems silly to require ALL the unit tests pass, too, cut them some slack. /s
I don’t think there is any problem with using AI art as a placeholder until the real art is ready.
I also don’t think there is any problem with being disqualified from a competition that says “No AI Art” for doing so.
