Turns out you really can suffer from success. The Indie Game Awards has rescinded Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Game of the Year award following the discovery that GenAI was used for placeholder art in an earlier version of the game.
Over the weekend, it was revealed that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 would lose its Debut Game and Game of the Year trophies from the Indie Game Awards due to the game no longer being eligible thanks to its AI usage. Sorry We're Closed and Blue Prince will now take home those awards respectively, with the roguelike puzzler winning the top prize.
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's controversy was unearthed as gamers caught wind of AI usage in the game from an interview with El Pais earlier in the year. There, it was revealed that some background placeholder art was generated with AI, and was later patched out.
Gamers appear to be on a witch hunt for AI usage right now. On the one hand, this is an understandable gripe to have, as it can damage the artistic integrity of a project, but on the other, in this instance at least no one noticed Sandfall using AI, and the GenAI was patched out, so we have to wonder whether this is the battle worth fighting. As AI encroaches more and more on game development, though, there are plenty making their voices heard about this new tech.