I agree that this holds in theory, but in practice? All the overhyping of AI I've heard from the gaming sector has come from the big studios, not indies. And, as you point out, Clair Obscur isn't the 'most indie' of indies anyway.

Maybe the small studios just use it as a tool and don’t need to hype it to make it look good for stock holder interests.

That's what semi-recent whining about Larian saying they use AI was about. They just use it to cut some of the boring work and iterate over some ideas, once the idea is in stone actual artist does it.

I don't see the problem because it isn't cutting more artists out of the loop, if anything they get more of the meaningful work

The best quote I've heard about this is: "Replace tasks not jobs".

Use AI to automate the boring shit so you can focus on the stuff that matters.

That throwaway texture that's on one model in the tutorial doesn't need days of focused work, so have the AI whip something up. Now your artist has two extra days for key art that's more visible.

It doesn't have to be hyped to be used, for example today I found these two building their passion project using GenAI, which would otherwise maybe not possible, who knows: https://reddit.com/comments/1prqfsu

Who is hyping the technology doesn't seem to be too relevant. Big studios have a bigger megaphone and, as another has pointed out, possibly even a financial motivation for shouting it from the rooftops for their investors to hear.

Maybe next year

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46297348

> To me, art is a form of expression from one human being to another. An indie game with interesting gameplay but AI generated assets still has value as a form of expression from the programmer.

How though? If questions about style or substance can be answered with "because the AI did it, its just some stochastic output from the model" I don't see how that allows for expression between humans.

In this case, you'd be judging the AI made assets as simply AI made and the human made gameplay and programming as human made. I'm not suggesting the AI assets would be transformed into art just because they are part of some human creative work.

Because a human selected it for you to see. If I send you a book to read, the book still has content and value even if I didn't write it.

There's not that much irony considering how people into indie games are more about the art and craft of video games, whereas The Game Awards is a giant marketing cannon for the video game industry, and the video game industry has always been about squeezing their employees. If they can hire fewer artists and less QA because of GenAI, they're all for it.

Just two days ago there were reports that Naughty Dog, a studio that allegedly was trying to do away with crunch, was requiring employees to work "a minimum of eight extra hours a week" to complete an internal demo.

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mab...

You’re not wrong, but I think a hardline stance is pragmatic for keeping AI out while it’s not yet normalized.

Simple fix, they need a separate categories for a game art award—no AI—and the rest of the categories (perhaps including game of the year, best new game) should allow AI.

Right now the rules they're using are going against larger forces in the world that are going to become standard (if they're not already).

And to your point, these are indie developers that are David's going up against the AAA Goliath's that have a bottomless purse with which to shower money on a "product". I dabble in art (and wrote some indie games decades ago) and I am fine with AI-generated art (despite my daughters' leanings in the opposite direction).

I'd agree if this were about The Game Awards or similar, where indie devs are expected to compete against the AAA goliaths, but I've always understood the Indie Game Awards as being more about the craft then the end product.

From the FAQ:

> The ceremony is developer-focused, with game creators taking center stage to present awards, recognize their peers, and openly speak without the pressure of time constraints.

https://www.indiegameawards.gg/faq

Regardless of AI's inevitability, I don't particularly care to celebrate it's use, and I think that's the most reasonable stance for a developer focused award to take.

That's a good point—this being the indie game awards. I still think it makes sense to have separate categories that allow for AI-generated content but "indie developed" (versus an "Indie Art Award" that absolutely prohibits AI-generated content).

We should be able to celebrate the creation, execution, concept of a game without letting AI assets nullify the rest.

It's the same thing as local restaurants being picky about using organic and environmentally sustainable ingredients while big chain corporations have a preference for low cost ingredients that strip the environment bare. The big corporations could afford organic stuff, but their aim is to just get a product out there and get it done cheaply. The local restaurant can't often compete on price alone, so they sell themselves as being made with care for the consumer. Selling one's product as a moral option has been a fairly reliable marketing tactic for a long time and I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long to enter the gaming industry.

This makes the most sense to me. I expect BigCorps to maximize profit and destroy their product to the point that it's slop. I don't expect indie developers or people "doing it for the craft" to make (or use) slop.