19 IGF jurors say they will not vote for games using generative AI; Big Walk admits limited use

Nineteen of the more than 50 Independent Games Festival (IGF) jurors published a statement saying they would not vote for games using generative AI in any capacity. The group cited ecological, economic, psychological, and labor harms and urged the IGF to adopt a policy banning games containing any AI-generated work in future years. The statement does not represent the IGF or all jurors; signatories include Sam Barlow and Lena Raine.

House House told Aftermath that it used LLMs “sparingly” near the end of Big Walk’s development to investigate third-party code problems and fix a Unity-related shadow bug. The studio said snippets from responses were adapted into well under 0.1% of the game’s code; it disclosed the use to the IGF but not on the game’s Steam page, which does not request that disclosure. Barlow said Big Walk did not prompt the discussion, but became a difficult edge case, and that the debate was not a call for a boycott.