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Big Walk Devs Issue Statement Over AI Usage
House House has disclosed that it used large language model chatbots sparingly to help solve technical problems during the final stretch of developing Big Walk. The disclosure, made public after the studio submitted it with the game’s entry for next year’s IGF Awards, comes amid a statement by some IGF jurors that they will not vote for games using generative AI.
The studio estimates that well under 0.1% of the game’s code was connected to this use, and says AI was not used elsewhere in development. One chatbot suggested a possible fix for a Unity rendering issue that made the game run 50% slower for about 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset; House House extensively modified the suggestion, which amounted to about 10 lines of code. The team said the use was not an endorsement of AI, apologised to those whose standards it may not meet, and called its lack of an internal AI policy a failure.
In short
- House House disclosed limited chatbot use during Big Walk’s final development.
- The studio says well under 0.1% of the code was connected to it.
- The disclosure followed scrutiny of AI use in IGF entries.
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The case for
House House’s limited use of a chatbot to troubleshoot a specific performance problem could be seen as a practical tool choice under development pressure, especially since the suggestion was extensively modified and affected a tiny fraction of the code. The studio disclosed the use and acknowledged its lack of an internal policy, which supports the view that transparent, bounded use can be assessed on its actual scope rather than treated as blanket endorsement of generative AI.
The case against
Even small contributions from generative AI may conflict with jurors’ standards, particularly given concerns about how these systems are trained and their effects on creative work. The lack of an internal policy also makes it harder to show that the studio had considered those concerns before using the tool, so jurors may reasonably treat any such use as relevant to eligibility or recognition.
Explained simply
House House is an independent Australian game studio best known for Untitled Goose Game. Big Walk is its next game, made using Unity, a software tool for building games. Game development can involve solving technical problems that affect performance, such as a slowdown during particular lighting conditions.
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual awards programme for independent games. Its jurors assess entries, and some have said they will not vote for games that use generative AI: tools that produce text, images or code in response to prompts. Studios submitting games are asked to disclose whether they used such tools.
The issue matters because studios and awards bodies are weighing how to define and judge AI use in game-making. A small amount of AI-assisted code can prompt questions about disclosure, studio policies and what counts as acceptable use.