Big Walk AI use in game development and IGF awards debate, Digi Mart USA News: After several Independent Games Festival jurors took a firm stance against AI-developed video games, discussion quickly turned to one of the year’s most acclaimed titles. Social media reports soon revealed that Big Walk had used AI “in the final stretch” of its development, sparking intense debate across the judge and jury pools.
Developer House House told Aftermath by email that “LLMs were used sparingly by House House to help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs.” The studio estimated that “well under 0.1% of Big Walk’s code had anything to do with this usage,” and said “generative AI was not used in any other context when making the game.”
House House acknowledged the opposition to the news. “We have some concern that voluntary disclosures like this might contribute to the normalisation of this technology, or its treatment as ‘inevitable,'” the studio said, adding that it supports efforts to limit the harm generative AI is doing to videogames and the world, and apologized that Big Walk’s LLM usage may not meet those standards.
Despite the limited scope of the usage, the disclosure was a disappointment to some jurors and others, particularly given the game’s other progressive stances. Others view it as a sign of the times, reflecting public distrust and exhaustion with the technology, and warn against alienating a game that is otherwise expected to appear on many Game of the Year shortlists.
House House explained that it had not disclosed the usage on Steam because the platform does not request disclosure of code or chatbot usage. “We are posting this disclosure as it has become a matter of public interest,” the studio said.
Looking ahead, the studio said “Big Walk was developed without an internal AI usage policy in place, and we consider that lack of policy a failure. We will work to have a more comprehensive policy going forwards.”
