Game of The Year got CANCELLED for Using AI..

What's up, guys? In today's video, I want to talk about a situation that is currently ongoing, involving a game called Clare Obscure: Expedition 33. This is arguably one of the best games made in the last 10 years, and it was actually made by a really small developer. It's got beautiful art direction, incredible character design, and the environments also feel so delicately crafted. So, it's not a surprise that this game went on to win like eight awards at the Game Awards of 2025. I've personally played through this game and I think artistically it is very much deserving of all the awards that it has been given. But that's not all. This game actually went on to win the indie game of the year award as well, which is a lesserk known award. But the internet just recently rediscovered an issue where Expedition 33 was said to have used Genai in its development process. And this whole thing has just blown up spectacularly. And just recently, the Indie Game Awards has announced that it has taken back the game of the year award from Expedition 33. they're giving it to someone else. Now, I find this to be a very interesting ongoing situation involving the gaming and art industry, but I also think a lot of people online are just seeing the headlines and not actually understanding what's going on here. So, here's how the entire AI shenanigans started. Expedition 33 comes out April 24th, 2025. April 26, 2 days after the release of the game, a post was made on X saying, "Crect me if I'm wrong, but it appears as though Clare Obscure Expedition 33 used generative AI for these textures." Now, if we just take a closer look at some of the newspapers pasted on this lamp post here, you can see there's a lot of artifacts, especially in the titles as well as the images that really does seem to scream Gen AI. The developer was then notified of this and within 5 days, they were able to patch this out. So, here's a comparison of the post before and after the texture has been updated. And ever since then, it seems like everyone has forgotten about that instance and this game has been getting non-stop praise and love. But of course, that is all until another CEO from another studio decided to start yapping about them using Genai to develop concept art and write placeholder text. Now, this pissed off a lot of people. And with all of that rage, some people decided to channel it towards Expedition 33. Here's a post saying, "Expedition 33 team freely admitted using AI and just won the most awards ever in the game awards history." And there's a quote, "We use some AI, but not much. Unreal Engine 5's tools and assets have been very important in improving the graphics, gameplay, and cinematics. And this situation has actually emboldened a lot of proAI people to say that AI to help develop video games is here to stay. So, it was basically a perfect storm. People got really mad about this and eventually it led to the Indie Game Awards, basically withdrawing their award and giving it to another game. But the problem with this whole situation is there's a lot of missing context and it seems to be another case of you're either with us or against us. Everything is black and white. Here's an article all the way back from July from a publication that actually got in touch with the developers. Sandfall Interactive indicated that it had used a limited number of pre-existing assets, notably 3D assets sourced from the Unreal Engine marketplace. Sandfall Interactive further clarifies that there are no generative AI created assets in the game. When the first AI tools became available in 2022, some members of the team briefly experimented with them to generate temporary placeholder texture. Upon release, instances of a placeholder texture were removed within 5 days to be replaced with the correct textures that had always been intended for release, but were missed during the quality assurance process. Now, just in case that was actually not enough context, the CEO of Sandfall Interactive, which made Expedition 33, has been quoted saying, "I think we agree that when it comes to anything creative, our answer is essentially no." in reference to, you know, using things and making things with Gen AI. It's like taking away all the joy of creating a game. We love making games. We love creating. Creating is one of the most beautiful things people can do. So, when it comes to creation, our answer is a firm no. Nothing in the game will come from AI. We state this clearly. It's a firm no for us. The game's music composer has also backed up the statement, saying he's not worried about AI because he can't see it replacing the kind of creative work that comes from the heart or posing a threat to composers or even voice actors. And here's another quote saying, "When AI first really came out in 2022, we already started on the game. It was just a new tool. We tried it and we didn't like it at all. It felt wrong. We had originally used it as a placeholder for textures we missed, but we took it out as soon as we found it. But yeah, the concept art, voice actors, everything is humanmade. It is pretty hard to predict what the future of the industry will look like, but everything will be made by humans from us. So, in this case, my belief is that this is a situation involving the artist and developers of the game that just got blown way out of proportion. This person on X put it really well. Over 5 million people played Expedition 33 and only one instance of AI was found and it was a small placeholder that was patched out and sandfall in it. It was from 2022. Now, for me, and I'm sure for a lot of you guys out there, we would prefer to have no Gen AI content in the media that we consume, but in this specific scenario, it just seems like it was something that was genuinely a small experimentation that was done in 2022, was patched out. It was never meant to be anything that was supposed to stay in the game. And combining that with the CEO's actual stance on Genai, I don't think this whole situation warrants the amount of hate that the game has gotten. Do I want Genai in my games? Hell no. But can I forgive something like this from a smaller developer? Yes, I can. Everything is situational and everything requires context. But it seems like there is a small subset of people that are just so dead set on the black and white view of everything related to Genai that they're not able to comprehend this or have a more nuanced view of this situation. Someone said 1% of in my food is still in my food. Just because they took it out after getting caught just means they are cool with doing it as long as they aren't caught. Doesn't matter what ends up in the final product. Any use of Gen AI, even to search the internet, still validates the mass non-consensual scraping of all works. Here's a bit of useful context. Okay, my genuine take on this as someone in gamedev is that people just don't understand the last part of the quote. He specifically references Unreal Engine's tool suite, which allows for plugins that use generation to speed up process. These tools reference contained assets from their own databases to create what you need as placeholders in your game. Brush being against Creative AI tells me that they're not on Gemini or Chat GPT creating assets for placeholders, and they're most likely using Unreal Engine 5's tools and thirdparty plugins to do this, which is what a lot of game devs have been using. My stance as an artist, as many of you guys know, is that I don't like Genai, and I would prefer to not have it in any of the content that I consume. I personally don't want genai content to be something that is widely accepted and consumed because I believe in art that is made with human creativity that comes again from the heart. But hate campaigns like this one towards studio devs and artists who a lot of them have clearly expressed that they are not on the side of Genai. It's just been taken way too far by a few very extreme people. Again, I think it's important for us to make it known to companies and corporations that we don't want Gai content. We don't like this stuff. Let's vote with our feet. Let's vote with our wallets. But this situation has been kind of crazy, especially considering that the devs have actually been relatively open about everything that's been going on behind the scenes. So, I feel like this situation is probably going to set some sort of precedent going forward, especially for AI generated content, but I do hope that something like this doesn't happen again. Now, the hate on Coca-Cola, the hate on McDonald's for using Gen AI Christmas ads, uh, is great. It's fantastic. It's like sunshine and rainbows in the sky. I love that Those are big corpse using AI as a way to cut cost, cut labor, remove artists, voice actors, videographers. They're cutting costs. They're cutting jobs at everybody else's expense. But this case is so different. You know, I think there's just no nuance here. And people are jumping on the hate bandwagon just because they saw AI next to the title of this game. The world needs a little bit more nuance. The world needs a little bit more context. That's my take. Be firm in your beliefs and your values. speak up and demand change when the situation warrants it. Absolutely. But also be able to give grace to people who might deserve a second chance, like the developers and artists who worked on this game. But regardless of all of that, I think this just goes to show how important it is to be transparent and be very upfront about your usage of Genai if you do ever use it in a project. At this point, as the internet keeps getting more and more fake and we keep getting fed more and more fake content, it's just becoming increasingly important to have transparency and authenticity. If you used it, disclose it. But again, besides all of that, I'm still genuinely encouraged by just how much push back there is against Gen content, especially with the recent McDonald's Christmas ad that just got taken down. That is music to my ears. But sometimes the internet still does its thing and it targets the wrong people, right? This is still a developing situation. Everybody involved is still learning how to adapt to this new reality that we're in. And it's unfortunate that sometimes like this happens. Anyways guys, I thought that was an interesting story. A lot of my audience is involved in some capacity in the entertainment industry, which involves gaming, of course. So, I thought it would be kind of helpful to cover this current story and provide some more context. That being said, though, if you guys want to see more art related content, subscribe to my channel and check out my Patreon for monthly art tutorials. And let this be a reminder to all of us to live our lives with a little bit more nuance.

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