Following House House’s announcement that it used AI for debugging and other development tasks on *Big Walk*, a wave of negative reviews has flooded Steam. At the same time, however, the number of positive reviews posted during the same period has exceeded the number of negative ones.
366 negative reviews on the day the AI use was announced. Calls for prior explanation
On November 10, House House announced that it had made limited use of large language models (LLMs) during the development of *Big Walk* to resolve difficult technical challenges and bugs.
One specific example cited was an issue where the game’s performance slowed by 50% for about 20 seconds during sunrise and sunset. The company explained that, for this problem—which stemmed from third-party code and could not be resolved even after consulting with engineers—they implemented a solution proposed by the LLM after making significant modifications.The company stated that the code involving AI use accounted for less than 0.1% of the total, and that generative AI was not used for any other purposes.
Following this announcement, 366 negative reviews were posted on Steam on the 10th, and 130 on the 11th. In addition to criticism of the AI’s use, some reviewers noted that while they enjoyed the game itself, they took issue with the lack of prior disclosure.
One review pointed out that consumers should be able to decide for themselves whether to financially support companies that use AI, and expressed a desire for this information to have been disclosed before release. On the other hand, the reviewer also praised the game’s quality, noting that it’s best played with about four people.
There were also reviews stating that while they had enjoyed playing with friends, this announcement had shaken their trust in the developer. These reviews expressed dissatisfaction with the development methods and information disclosure rather than with the game’s content itself.
Positive reviews outnumbered negative ones on both days. Some have questioned the concentration of criticism.
Meanwhile, 426 positive reviews were posted on the 10th and 652 on the 11th, exceeding the number of negative reviews on both days.
Among the positive reviews on Steam, some posts argue that the current criticism is excessive, given the game’s limited scope and its intended use as a debugging tool.
There are also reviews that take issue with the discrepancy between House House’s stated stance—supporting efforts to mitigate the harms of generative AI—and the game’s actual implementation. However, these posts distinguish between criticism of the developer and an evaluation of the game itself, stating that the game is excellent and deserves a “Positive” rating.
Big Walk Steam review bombing due to AI disclosure is incredibly stupid
by
u/Traditional_Adhesive in
pcmasterrace
In the Reddit thread, while some users took issue with the lack of prior disclosure regarding AI use, others noted that the use of AI in programming is already widespread and will be unavoidable in the future.
The thread’s author criticized the review bombing, arguing that indie developers who honestly disclose their use of AI for bug fixes should not be punished. There were also comments praising the developers for tweaking the AI’s output before using it, sparking a debate over the appropriate approach to information disclosure and the use of AI.
