IGF jurors draw a hard line on generative AI as House House details Big Walk’s limited use

The Independent Games Festival’s jurors said they would not vote for games that use generative AI in any capacity, even as House House disclosed that Big Walk used AI sparingly in the final stretch of development. The back-to-back statements expose a widening fault line in indie games over when, if ever, machine-generated help becomes acceptable.

What happened

The dispute surfaced after IGF jurors, speaking to The Verge, said they would reject games using generative AI at any point in their creation. Their statement came amid what they described as a notable rise in AI-made games among this year’s IGF entries and, by their account, no shared agreement on how to handle the issue internally.

Soon after, House House — the studio behind Big Walk — published its own account of how it used large language models late in development. The studio said the technology was used sparingly and only near the end of production, mainly to help solve difficult technical problems and bugs.

House House also said the AI-assisted parts were narrow enough to be measured in fractions: it estimated that under 0.1% of Big Walk’s code had any AI-related origin. The studio said generative AI was not used for any other part of making the game.

Why it matters

The clash matters because it shows how hard it is for game awards, studios and fans to draw a clear ethical line around generative AI. In a field where code, art, writing and debugging are often interwoven, even small uses of LLM output can become a dispute over fairness, disclosure and artistic standards.

It also matters for indie developers in particular. The Independent Games Festival is a major showcase linked to the Game Developers Conference, so its norms can influence how smaller studios think about recognition, eligibility and reputation. If jurors take a strict position while developers make limited, disclosed use of AI tools, those two approaches may be difficult to reconcile.

For players, the immediate issue is transparency. House House disclosed its AI use in its IGF submission, but said it did not disclose it on Big Walk’s Steam page because Steam does not require code or chatbot disclosure. That difference highlights a bigger question for the industry: what, exactly, should users be told when a game’s production includes machine assistance?

How the IGF jurors framed their stance

The jurors’ position was unusually firm. According to The Verge, they said they would not vote for games using generative AI “in any capacity.” They also said their statement was not meant to speak for the IGF as an organization or for every juror.

That distinction matters. The jurors were careful to present the statement as a limited, internal view rather than a formal festival policy. Even so, the language suggests a strong preference for fully human-made work among at least some of the people judging the competition.

The Verge reported that the signatories included Sam Barlow and Lena Raine. The jurors also said there was no universal consensus on the issue and described intense disagreement among themselves. Some, they said, feared professional blowback if they signed publicly.

Why jurors are drawing a line

Part of the concern appears to be the volume of AI content entering the festival. The jurors said they saw a significant rise in AI-made games among this year’s IGF entries. That made the issue harder to ignore, even as individual jurors remained split on how to respond.

Generative AI in games has become controversial for the same reason it has unsettled other creative industries: it can produce text, code and other assets that developers may adapt into production work. Supporters see efficiency and problem-solving; critics see dilution of authorship and a system that can mask how much of a project is actually machine-assisted.

House House says the use was narrow and disclosed

House House said its use of AI in Big Walk was tightly limited and largely confined to a technical debugging phase. The studio said the main LLM use involved researching third-party-code issues through chatbots.

In one case, the studio said it pursued a shadow-fixing problem after extensive research and a conversation with a Unity engineer. House House said the LLM helped it work through difficult technical challenges and bugs, and that snippets from LLM output were copied only as a starting point before being modified.

The studio’s description is notable because it differentiates between using AI as a drafting aid and using it as a production engine. House House said it “sparingly” used the tool in the final stretch of development, and its estimate that under 0.1% of the code had any AI-related origin suggests a very narrow footprint.

“help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs”

House House also said the disclosure was not an endorsement of AI tools. That point appears designed to separate transparency from approval, a distinction that is becoming increasingly important as developers are pressed to explain their workflows in public.

How did House House handle disclosure?

House House said it disclosed AI use in its IGF submission, but not on Big Walk’s Steam page. Its explanation was practical: Steam does not require code or chatbot disclosure.

The studio said it worries that voluntary disclosures may normalize AI or imply that its use is inevitable. That concern gets to the heart of a broader debate in creative tech: whether disclosure is a safeguard, a stigma, or both.

House House also apologized that the game’s LLM use may not meet critics’ standards. At the same time, the studio said it had no AI policy during Big Walk’s development and described that as a failure. It said it will try to adopt a more comprehensive AI policy going forward.

By the numbers

The available details are limited, but the contrast between the two positions is stark.

Background: how we got here

The Independent Games Festival is a major indie game awards showcase tied to the Game Developers Conference. That makes it one of the most visible stages for debates about production methods, not just the final games themselves.

Generative AI has been a particularly sensitive issue in games because it can be used across multiple parts of development. The fact sheet notes that large language models can generate text and code suggestions that developers may adapt into production work. That flexibility is part of the appeal — and part of the controversy.

In the present case, both sides are reacting to the same underlying reality: AI tools are already present in the development pipeline, but there is little agreement on where assistance ends and unacceptable substitution begins.

The jurors’ response suggests a desire for a bright-line rule. House House’s response suggests a more granular standard, one that allows narrowly targeted use while preserving human control over the result. The tension between those two approaches is exactly where the current dispute sits.

Who is in the middle of this debate?

At the centre are three groups: jurors who want to avoid generative AI entirely, developers who may use it for limited technical purposes, and players who want clarity about how games are made. The fact sheet also points to pressure points inside those groups: fear of public backlash, uncertainty around policy and disagreement over whether any AI use is too much.

What the dispute reveals about indie game culture

The episode is about more than one game or one festival. It shows that indie game culture, which often prizes authorship and craft, is now confronting the same AI questions that have already unsettled publishing, music and visual art.

For some jurors, the principle is simple: if generative AI was used at all, the work should not be rewarded. For House House, the issue is more complicated. The studio says it used AI only to help with technical issues late in development, did not rely on it for other parts of the game and treated the output as raw material, not finished work.

Those competing views are difficult to reconcile because they answer different questions. One asks whether AI touched the project at all. The other asks how and why it was used. The current argument shows that industry norms have not yet settled on which question should matter most.

What happens next

Several unresolved issues will shape how this story develops from here.

• IGF rules: It is unclear whether the festival will change disclosure or judging rules after the dispute.
• Other entries: The extent to which other IGF entrants used AI has not been detailed.
• Reception of Big Walk: It remains to be seen whether the disclosure affects the game’s eligibility or its reception.
• House House policy: The studio said it wants a more comprehensive AI policy, but has not yet published one.

The most immediate thing to watch is whether the festival or its judges try to formalise a standard. If they do, they will have to decide whether any generative AI use is disqualifying, whether limited technical use can be disclosed and accepted, or whether the matter should be left to individual jurors.

That decision will matter beyond this one dispute. The IGF is a prominent indie showcase, and any rulemaking there could influence how small studios document AI use, how platform pages handle disclosure and how future juries weigh the role of machine assistance in creative work.

For now, the message from both sides is clear: the industry has not found a shared answer. The jurors want a ban on generative AI in the work they reward. House House says it used the technology narrowly, disclosed it and regrets not having a formal policy in place. The gap between those positions is likely to keep widening until festivals, studios and platforms decide how much AI use they are willing to tolerate — and require people to reveal.