Clair Obscur has its Indie Game of the Year award stripped due to AI use
This story is less about one game and more about the (still messy) rules layer forming around AI-assisted creation. According to the report, Clair Obscur received an Indie Game Game Of The Year award — and then had it revoked a few hours later amid concerns about the use of AI.
The broader takeaway is that “AI use” isn’t a binary. Teams use generative tools across a spectrum: reference exploration, texture/asset drafts, voice experiments, marketing copy, or final shipped content. Awards, marketplaces, and platform policies often collapse those distinctions into a single label, which creates incentives to hide tooling rather than disclose it. Expect more explicit “what counts” rules (and audit/disclosure expectations) as generative pipelines become normal in production art and design.
There’s also a second-order effect: once awards and distribution channels start enforcing “no AI” rules, studios may need provenance workflows (source files, model/version logs, licensing notes) the same way some teams already track open-source dependencies. That’s not just bureaucracy — it’s a practical defense against retroactive policy changes, and it will shape which creative AI tools survive (the ones that can support transparent, controllable pipelines).