The Indie Game Awards, hosted by Six One Indie, were held on December 18, with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 winning Best Debut Game and Indie Game of the Year. Two days later, it was disqualified from eligibility. Its awards were withdrawn and awarded to runners-up due to revelations about the game’s usage of generative AI.
Sandfall Interactive’s indie status has already been put into question by many, owing to its AAA prestige and team size in a field where many independent games are made by under 10 people, but it qualified for the IGA’s awards until its use of generative AI was revealed. Screenshots close to launch in April showed a pillar covered in posters with generated text and images, which were quietly patched out shortly after release. Unlike The Alters, which used gen AI for both placeholders and some subtitles, Clair Obscur went under the radar with its usage, despite disclosing that they used “some, not much” gen AI when speaking to Spanish periodical El País in July.
The IGA made a staunch commitment against any gen AI usage in its nominees, stipulating that “games developed using generative AI are strictly ineligible for nomination” in their eligibility FAQ. In a statement posted on their social media, Six One Indie’s creative director Mike Towndrow said “despite agreeing that no gen AI was used in the making of the game when it was submitted to us for consideration, unfortunately that’s not the case. That clearly goes against the regulations we have in place and disqualifies it from nomination.”
With Clair Obscur disqualified, the IGA award for Debut Game now goes to Sorry We’re Closed and the Indie Game of the Year is now Blue Prince. Although Sorry was released in 2024, it was still within the eligibility window. The new winners have been contacted and will provide acceptance speeches when feasible.
Towndrow went on to disqualify one of their Indie Vanguards, Gorytn Code, as their game Chantey is being distributed and produced solely by ModRetro, founded by arms dealer Palmer Luckey. ModRetro had made headlines prior in the week after unveiling the Anduril edition of their Chromatic handheld, made with metal also used in Luckey’s attack drones of the same name as a selling point. With this going “strictly against the values” of the show, their status was also revoked.
In an update to the El País article, Sandfall asserted that although the AI generated placeholder accidentally shipped in the final game, it was a product of “brief” experimentation with the new technology in 2022 and that currently “there are no generative AI-created assets” in Clair Obscur. In a time where we can only go on the word of developers and the scrutiny of consumers, Sandfall’s statement here is as good as we can get.
