Clair Obscur won multiple awards but used generative AI art as placeholders during production.
The Indie Game Awards revoked Clair Obscur’s Debut and Game of the Year after the AI disclosure.
IGAs reassigned the awards (Blue Prince, Sorry We’re Closed) and reignited debate on gen-AI use.
Why not? If the tools weren’t available, they’d have used stock art or something super basic and crappy looking, which would’ve been just as good as a placeholder. But the tools were available.
In 2025 it makes sense for companies to have policies against using generative AI tools even for stuff like this because of the systemic effects of normalized use. But in 2022, it wouldn’t have been a thing. Nobody would have thought twice about it. Just a neat new thing that does the job.