A group of Independent Games Festival (IGF) jurors has said publicly that they won’t vote for any game that uses generative AI “in any capacity.” Soon after, House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, said it used AI “sparingly” while making its new co-op hit Big Walk. The Verge AI reports that the two statements have left the indie game community openly divided, and that split is likely to reach well beyond one awards show.
The Short Version
- What happened: Some IGF jurors published a statement this week rejecting games made with generative AI, including AI-generated code.
- Who signed: Names include Sam Barlow (Telling Lies, Immortality) and Lena Raine (Celeste composer).
- The edge case: House House says it copied a few LLM snippets into Big Walk‘s code. Its estimate is “well under 0.1%” of the codebase.
- Why it matters: It’s one of the first times respected creators have set a zero-tolerance AI standard for a major award, and it explicitly covers coding help.
What the Jurors Said
According to the statement, which Austin Walker shared, this year’s IGF entries have been “incredible.” But the jurors also saw “a significant increase” in games “developed with generative AI tools.” That led to “fairly intense discussion and disagreement” without any “universal consensus.”
The jurors listed what they believe:
- Generative AI has “negative effects.”
- AI-generated code is “not an exception to these harms.”
- AI adoption is “not a forgone conclusion in our industry.”
They made clear they don’t speak for the IGF as an organization or for every juror. Some jurors reportedly worried about signing “without professional blowback.” That tells you a lot about how heated this has become.
House House’s Unusual Confession
House House’s statement is worth reading closely. The studio says its “primary use case” was “to research, via chatbots, issues we encountered with third-party code.” One example was a shadow rendering bug. The team says it turned to a chatbot only after researching the problem “extensively” and even talking to an engineer at Unity. It then reworked the code the LLM suggested.
The studio says it disclosed this in its IGF submission. It didn’t flag it on Steam, because “the platform does not request disclosure of code or chatbot usage.”
What stands out is the tone. House House isn’t defending AI. It’s apologizing for it:
“This is not an endorsement of, or argument for, the use of AI tools, however minimal.”
The studio even says it worries that voluntary disclosures like its own could help make the technology seem normal or “inevitable.” It called having no AI policy during development a “failure” and promised a “more comprehensive policy going forwards.”
Barlow: This Isn’t a Boycott
After The Verge AI published its story, Barlow said Big Walk wasn’t the “impetus” for the debate. Instead, it became the “tricky edge case.” What do you do when a team you love uses AI in a very small way?
He said the statement is “not a call to boycott a certain game, or to economically hurt a team.” He framed it as a question about what one award should stand for: an “indie” alternative to mainstream, large-scale game development.
Why This Matters Beyond Games
This is significant because it goes after the use of AI that most developers consider harmless. Asking a chatbot to help debug code has become routine across software. Many teams don’t even think of it as “using AI.” These jurors are saying it counts.
For practitioners, there are a few practical takeaways:
- Disclosure is becoming a liability. House House was honest and still ended up at the center of the controversy. Other studios may decide to say less, not more.
- Platforms lag behind communities. Steam asks about AI-generated content but not about coding assistants. Festival juries are now setting stricter rules than the stores do.
- Internal AI policies aren’t optional anymore. If a respected studio calls missing one a “failure,” smaller teams should take note.
- “Minimal use” is no longer a safe defense. In creative communities, how much AI you used may matter less than whether you used it at all.
What Comes Next
The IGF hasn’t taken an official position, and that’s the next thing to watch. If the organization writes the jurors’ stance into formal rules, other indie awards and festivals could follow. If it doesn’t, expect individual jurors to keep drawing their own lines, with all the inconsistency that brings.
For now, the indie scene is showing that it wants to set its own norms on AI rather than accept the industry’s view that it’s inevitable. Walker has also written a long blog post explaining his position, and the full story is available at The Verge AI.