IGF jurors turn on generative AI as GTA 6 launch nears

A group of 19 named jurors for the 2027 Independent Games Festival, among them Austin Walker, Sam Barlow and Lena Raine, have issued a statement saying they will not vote for any game that used generative AI in any capacity. They draw no line between art, sound and code, arguing that programming is a creative discipline and that the harms (ecological, economic, psychological and to labour) do not depend on what is generated. The statement cites a significant rise in AI-assisted submissions and urges the IGF to adopt a strong anti-AI policy that bars such games in future years.

The jurors stress that they do not speak for the IGF or for all jurors. Some colleagues disagreed, and others feared professional blowback if they signed. IGF leadership approved the release of the statement but has not adopted its position, and Aftermath's Luke Plunkett notes that the rise in AI use is visible across the industry this year.

CounterpointDevelopers and executives who defend AI tooling, the pro-AI camp in the Kenney and Sweeney exchange among them, would say a blanket ban on code assistance penalises small teams, and that the IGF's own rules leave jurors free to vote on taste. Some of the festival's other jurors had reservations about the statement itself.

Previously: The Kenney and Tim Sweeney exchange had put the pro- and anti-AI camps in direct conflict, with Steam survey data cutting both ways. — Saturday November 7 edition.

Writer Jeffrey Rousseau argues that games journalism has always been a white institution, with Black writers a small minority even when the sector was hiring heavily. The feature draws on interviews with past and present Black journalists about gatekeeping and who shapes coverage. Its central case study is N'Gai Croal, whose 2008 comments on the Resident Evil 5 trailer led to an industry-wide debate. Croal later learned that a senior Capcom US figure had raised concerns about the game's imagery internally, which sits awkwardly with producer Jun Takeuchi's claim that the reaction was unanticipated. Rousseau's conclusion is that Black journalists want more than gratitude for being included.

CounterpointEditors at mainstream outlets would likely say the shrinking of games media has cut staff of every background and that hiring has been shaped by economics. Some would also argue that coverage of cases like Resident Evil 5 shows the press can correct itself.

Previously: Unwinnable's survey of women and genderfluid reviewers described falling review placements and layoffs of editors. — Friday November 6 edition.

James Wood argues that Zelda Notes, an optional service in the Nintendo Switch app, improves the Ocarina of Time remake instead of cheapening it. Its real-time map, filterable by Child and Adult eras, and its per-area completion percentages make a completionist run easier. Wood contends this avoids the usual complaint about open-world checklists because Ocarina's compact, dense world doesn't need the tracking, which sits on a separate device you can ignore. He calls it the best realisation yet of the Wii U's second-screen ambitions.

CounterpointCritics of companion apps and completion trackers, including some of the Polygon writers who questioned the remake's purpose, would say that any percentage counter nudges players toward checklist play whether or not the screen is separate.

Previously: Polygon's Welsh and Venter weighed in on the remake's purpose and on its scarcity compared with Skyrim's many releases. — Monday November 9 edition.

In his Parallax: Japan column, Robson says GTA VI is highly anticipated in Japan, which has a loyal GTA Online following through the Stogra roleplay server, and GTA V sold close to 2 million copies there. He argues the PS5 is the obstacle: with an estimated 6 million units in play in Japan after grey-market exports to China, against roughly 6.4 million Switch 2 units in under 18 months. He expects a strong first couple of weeks, but notes that Red Dead Redemption 2 lasted only two weeks in the Top 10. After that, he says, predictions get harder.

CounterpointTake-Two says GTA 6 pre-orders are tracking far in excess of its expectations, and the franchise's pull may be strong enough to outlast the console gap Robson describes.

Previously: Physical copies of GTA 6 had begun reaching retailers. — Sunday November 8 edition.

Edser argues that the foundations of the AI boom are wobbling: a mid-October tech stock slide, a roughly $500 billion drop in Alphabet's value after it admitted AI search features were hurting ad revenue, and Democratic wins in both chambers, with polling suggesting data centre expansion was a voter grievance. He adds that Nvidia's share price fell in pre-market trading after Jensen Huang admitted an affair with an alleged Chinese spy and the company opened an internal national security investigation. Edser says he is no economist and cannot call a bubble burst, but he believes AI is here to stay and that the era of unlimited investor optimism is ending.

CounterpointAI bulls would say that record quarterly revenue at several tech companies shows demand is real, and that one bad week for shares, or a scandal around a single executive, is not evidence of a structural collapse.

Previously: PC Gamer reported that Nvidia, Micron and other AI stocks fell after the elections, in what looked like the start of a correction. — Friday November 6 edition.