IGF Jurors Veto AI-Assisted Games; House House Discloses Minor LLM Use in Big Walk

A group of jurors for the 2026 Independent Games Festival announced this week that they will withhold votes from any game that utilizes generative AI in any capacity. The declaration, released during the festival, immediately focused industry attention on specific titles in the current lineup, most notably Big Walk by House House. The statement signaled a hard line in an ongoing debate about how emerging technology intersects with independent creative processes.

House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, responded to the scrutiny by confirming the use of artificial intelligence tools. The developers stated they used large language models sparingly during the final stages of development to address technical challenges. Specifically, the team used chatbots to research issues with third-party code and to resolve persistent bugs. One cited example involved modifying LLM-suggested code to fix a shadow rendering issue. House House noted that they turned to these tools only after extensive research and a consultation with a Unity engineer.

The studio quantified the impact of these tools, estimating that well under 0.1 percent of the game's code had any connection to generative AI. No other context during the creation process involved AI. House House disclosed this usage in its IGF submission but did not list it on the game's Steam page, noting that the platform does not currently request disclosure of code or chatbot usage. The developers emphasized that this disclosure is not an endorsement of the technology.

The jurors' statement, signed by notable figures including Sam Barlow of Telling Lies and composer Lena Raine, argued that generative AI has negative effects on the industry. The group stated that AI-generated code is not an exception to these harms and that the use of such tools is not a foregone conclusion. The jurors clarified that their statement does not represent the entire IGF organization or all jury members. Some members expressed concern about the professional risks of signing the document, indicating a lack of universal consensus within the jury.

Sam Barlow provided additional context regarding the specific role of Big Walk in the dispute. He stated that the game was not the initial impetus for the discussion but became a difficult edge case. The issue raised questions about how to handle situations where a favored team uses AI in a minimal way. Barlow clarified that the movement is not a call to boycott specific games or harm teams economically. Instead, he framed the issue around what a single award should represent as a reflection of the indie alternative to mainstream development.

House House acknowledged that it lacked a formal AI policy during the development of Big Walk, describing this gap as a failure. The studio said it will work to implement a more comprehensive policy in the future to guide its practices. The developers expressed concern that voluntary disclosures might contribute to the normalization of the technology or lead to it being treated as inevitable. They affirmed their support for efforts to limit the harm generative AI causes to video games and apologized that their usage may not meet the standards of critics.

Austin Walker, who shared the jurors' statement, also published a detailed blog post outlining his position on AI and the IGF awards. These additional perspectives from both sides have framed the current disarray within the community. The debate continues as the industry evaluates the implications of AI in a sector that traditionally values unique, hand-crafted creative processes.