Over the weekend, we’ve listened to our members, our judges, and the game writer community voicing their views over our choice of partner for our upcoming game jam. We were made aware that Arcweave, our chosen partner for the IGDA Game Writing SIG’s ArcJam, includes generative AI features in a way that is not aligned with the SIG’s values. As a result, we’ve decided not to partner with any tools that include any level of generative AI features, as that gives the impression of the SIG endorsing the use of generative AI for game narrative - which, to be very clear, we do not.
Technologies and companies move quickly today. The Game Writing SIG ArcJam started from the partnership with Arcweave, and this was not flagged as an issue at the time. Last year’s jam was well-beloved, resulting in over 100 thoughtful game submissions and great community feedback, and the collaboration went very well. In agreeing to continue the partnership on last year’s premises, there was a failure on our part. We should not have presumed that things had remained static over a whole year, and we didn’t do our due diligence of vetting properly this year.
We apologize for the oversight that led to this situation, and we strive to do better to ensure our partners and sponsors are aligned with our values. As a result, we are stepping down from co-organizing the jam and we’re handing the reins and full responsibility to Arcweave to run the ArcJam. Our shared hope is that the 200+ jammers who already signed up still get to have a great weekend making story-focused games.
The jam will take place in Arcweave’s Discord server. The jam rules and restrictions remain the same under this new organizational structure, and all participants as well as signed up judges and prize sponsors are being contacted to notify them of the change in organization.
We will learn from this. We offered to run the jam on our own without the partnership, but that option did not work for Arcweave as it would change the submission format so close to the jam. The SIG still plans to deliver an excellent narrative game jam experience for everybody in the future, so keep an eye out for an IGDA Game Writing SIG game jam, this time probably without any partner, and a freedom to use any tools (outside of generative AI, of course). It will be a great opportunity for everyone to work with tools they want to use – maybe learn new ones – and create a portfolio-worthy piece over a weekend of creativity, writing and getting to know fellow humans.