Big Walk's AI disclosure reshapes the IGF debate

Austin Walker, an IGF juror, publishes the two internal posts he wrote during judging, which he says were prompted by games he loved that turned out to use AI. He says the jurors' deliberation grew out of the conversation around House House's Big Walk but was never about one game, and that the studios' Steam pages carried no disclosure because Steam's rules differ from the IGF's.

Walker stresses the statement had 19 signatories among roughly 50 jurors, that others privately agreed but did not sign, and that many fundamentally disagreed. He asks readers not to treat it as a majority view or an IGF position, and calls it one group's commitment at one moment.

CounterpointThe jurors who opposed the statement, as Walker himself notes, would argue that a blanket refusal to vote for any game that used AI penalises veteran developers whose use was limited and who followed the disclosure rules they were given.

Previously: Nineteen IGF jurors said they would not vote for any game using generative AI and called on the festival to ban such games. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

House House told Aftermath that it used LLMs sparingly late in development to work through technical problems, estimating well under 0.1% of the code was involved. Its example was a shadow-culling problem in Unity's URP that an LLM helped solve with about 10 lines of modified code. The studio says it did not disclose on Steam because the platform does not ask about code or chatbot use. It calls its lack of an AI policy a failure and apologises to those opposed to generative AI.

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett reports the revelation was reportedly a major factor in the jury disagreement, and that reactions split between disappointment and a sense that fatigue with the technology was alienating a leading GOTY contender.

CounterpointJurors and critics opposed to generative AI would say the small share of code is beside the point, since any use normalises the technology, a worry House House itself raises about voluntary disclosure.

Previously: Nineteen IGF jurors said they would not vote for any game using generative AI and called on the festival to ban such games. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Game File's Stephen Totilo notes that most of the industry squeezed holiday releases into earlier weeks to avoid GTA VI on November 19. Atari did the opposite, releasing a remastered Godzilla game last week and a Barbie classics compilation this Thursday. Atari CEO Wade Rosen says the timing was deliberate, and that the Godzilla release was meant to catch a new film and an expected lull in game launches.

CounterpointPublishers that moved their holiday releases earlier to avoid GTA VI evidently judged the surrounding weeks a bigger risk than Atari does.

Writing for Respec after watching his son play the Ocarina of Time remake, Tom Orry argues that big-budget fantasy has drifted toward soulslikes and violent Elder Scrolls-style epics, leaving little for younger players. He points to Okami at 4.8 million sales and Immortals Fenyx Rising, which he thinks deserved better, and to Odyssey's 30 million against Astro Bot's roughly 4 million.

His conclusion is that audiences buy Zelda the brand rather than the genre, which discourages anyone else from investing in colourful triple-A adventures. He still wants publishers to try.

CounterpointPublishers weighing those same sales figures would say the commercial case for a non-Nintendo equivalent is weak, a point Orry largely concedes himself.

Previously: TWIV praised the Zelda Notes companion service, and The Game Business data put UK physical launch sales second-best in the franchise. — Tuesday November 10 edition.

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio argues the remake is the first Switch 2 game where the hardware jump is undeniable, citing detailed textures, dense swaying foliage and a stable 60 frames per second. He says Eiji Aonuma told Polygon the puppet-show look came from a young art director, and that the extra power lets Nintendo's art direction range more widely. Colantonio says it overturned his earlier doubt that a stronger Switch would matter much for Nintendo's franchises.

CounterpointSceptics of the graphics-first view, a position Colantonio says he held until now, would say Nintendo's appeal rests on design and art style rather than hardware power.

Previously: TWIV praised the Zelda Notes companion service, and The Game Business data put UK physical launch sales second-best in the franchise. — Tuesday November 10 edition.