The IGF judge who says AI rules aren't about enforcement — they're about community
In Defense of Giving a Shit
A veteran Independent Games Festival judge explains why the uproar over Big Walk, which used LLMs for under 0.1% of its code, misses the point. Rules don't stop cheating; they tell the outside world what a community stands for and give insiders grounds to act. The real crisis is that the IGF has no coherent community left, and any AI policy will alienate a third of its judges either way.
When you write down a rule, it doesn't do anything. Rules are not magic. They don't have any power over people.
- disillusionist
My personal opinions on AI and AI usage in software development have fluctuated in the past year, especially as I've used it more in my professional work. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in the tools that I use, I struggle to identify a hard line on what "Made with AI (tm)" actually means. If I'm using it for refactoring work as basically a glorified "find-and-replace" or to help me track down the cause of tricky bugs through trace files, does that make my work "made with AI"? (I think "yes it does" and would follow up with "but does it matter?") If I send an agent to complete a JIRA ticket on a system that I designed, read the diff, and approve the changes - does that invalidate my prior design and development work? (I think "no".) If I use a website builder, a 3rd party library, or one more abstraction layer past what is currently acceptable, should that change how others or I feel about that project? I'm not really sure, but since I work on business software I don't think my customers really care about how the sausage is made; they're mostly looking for results.
I do, however, see a massive difference between "AI as tools" and "AI as creative director". I agree with the mindset of "I want to hear stories from humans" and "I want to experience creative expression from humans". But some of the current discussion feels like the arguments we had back in the day of whether Photoshop/digital media/video games were "real art" or not. If a human has creative vision and uses a r […]
- superultra
This article hooked me when it mentioned Big Wall, because Big Walk is easily one of the best games I’ve played in years.
It sounds like this author’s argument is “AI in games sucks for lots of reason but mostly because it robs people of jobs.” I don’t disagree with that in theory but the real question is whether House House would have actually hired another human.
My guess is that they would’ve either delayed it more, or not known about the bugs and released it. They are purposefully small and bringing on even a freelancer introduces a lot of complexity and room for error. So too does AI but ultimately you control the output. You don’t have to worry about it being late, or it having a bad day.
If the end result of using AI is an artful, beautiful game like Big Wall, I’m all for it.
In my opinion the metric shouldn’t be whether AI was used, it should be whether the end result is *good*. I realize that’s subjective but I think we can objectively say Big Walk is a wonderful, artful game. When AI is used and the output is bad - as was the case, say, with those Coca Cola or McDonalds ads - that’s when we should question it.
When it’s being used for artwork or writing - I also think that’s a valid argument against it because it is, as we all know, utilizing artwork and writing without consent.
Is that true for code? Maybe some code but we would all say, I think, it’s much looser around code than creative outputs like artwork and writing.
It sounds like House House used AI like a […]
- spicyusername
Eventually we'll get over having this discussion.
AI is here and it trivializes what used to be hard.
Developing software used to require feats of skill and endurance, and we're used to judging software based on that. Now it doesn't.
We will have to get used to judging software based on the output not on the input. Whether what was made is unique, interesting, creative, not whether it took a lot of time or knowledge.
There is no going back, only forward.
- GMoromisato
Does IGF want to reward human achievement or recognize the best indie games? Both are viable paths. Chess tournaments reward human achievements, for example. But I agree with the OP that it's unfair to not be clear on their criteria.
No matter which IGF chooses, I believe awards will ultimately bifurcate: some other contest will emerge for the other side.
I don't think that's bad, nor do I think allowing AI means "not giving a shit."
- tjohnell
I tried to finish reading this blog post, but couldn’t. Refreshingly, not because it was LLM-written, but because the author is clearly experiencing a visceral feeling toward AI-development, but they are incapable on breaking it down logically. Pure emotions. Not useful dialogue. Try again.
- falcor84
First off, I just one to say that while I'm strongly on the other side of this argument, and in favor of heavy AI use for dev work, I really appreciated the article and the way it makes its case.
My main point of contention is really with this:
> House House is not a studio that couldn't afford to hire a specialist for a few days to look into this problem.
I don't understand why there's this expectation that we have to throw people at every problem. Let's say that a dev faced with a difficult technical challenge in an area that they're not familiar with had instead gone to a library, and came out of it after 5h with a solution. Or alternatively, that they googled it and by having rolled the proverbial critical hit found an obscure blog post from 2005 with the exact solution to their problem. Would there really be a big difference? Why should we pay each other to do stuff for us that we can easily do with tools at a fraction of the time and cost?
Can anyone make a strong argument against using AI for dev work that would not immediately lead to needing to bring back all the elevator operators?
- stefs
regarding having to declare AI code: it's pretty much impossible to determine whether 3rd party code (i.e. libraries, frameworks, etc) use AI - and they don't have to declare it either. so either you ban 3rd party code completely - which would probably the end of the whole thing, because writing everything from scratch would probably not be achievable for any game developer with the some exceptions.
if they don't ban AI code in 3rd party code, you could just circumvent the whole thing by outsourcing a few developers to be part-time 3rd party in name only and let them do the AI development, which would be against the spirit but not against the law.
- itishappy
So the competition has no rules about AI use beyond disclosure, but the judges disqualify entries for disclosure? That sounds incredibly frustrating, to say the least!
The question I'm left with is:
Is this festival for good games or good game developers?
The article makes no arguments against Big Walk as a game, it's main complaint is that House House "made a mistake" and "are part of the problem" by not hiring someone like Simon Roth. I'm not sure how to judge this one. It feels like an emotional claim that makes objective judgement difficult.
My read is that the whole situation was entirely predictable, and the lack of clear guidelines reflects terribly on the IGF.