Anthropic has updated its Claude AI model to prevent users from cloning existing video games, addressing concerns from the game development community after Steam saw an influx of AI-generated game clones. The change, implemented in Claude Opus 5.5, adds a specific rule to its code generation capabilities.
The new directive within Claude Code's instructions states, "Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user's own designs and assets. Do not build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original." This update was confirmed by Addy Osmani, a member of Anthropic's technical staff, who noted that using Claude to infringe intellectual property violates their usage policy. He assured that the ability to create original games or games based on user designs remains unaffected and that the company will continue to refine the model to strike a balance.
Claude Opus 5.5 had previously demonstrated a notable capacity for reverse engineering code, contributing to the decompilation of old console games and the jailbreaking of the PlayStation 5. The AI model's ability to recreate existing games had led to widespread concern among developers, with several studios canceling planned public demos of their upcoming games due to fears of code being copied and used to generate AI clones.
This situation arises amidst a broader problem on Steam, which has experienced a significant increase in low-effort games, many of which are direct copies or heavy imitations of established titles. The recent Steam Next Fest saw a doubling in the number of showcased game demos compared to the previous event, with AI-assisted games comprising a large portion of this increase.
Valve, the company behind Steam, has acknowledged the issue of "AI slop" and game cloning on its platform. However, Valve's Tom Giardino has expressed reluctance to ban AI coding tools outright, stating a desire not to act as "gatekeepers telling developers which tools they should or shouldn't use." Instead, Valve aims to make Steam a more dynamic platform and advises developers to differentiate their games by adding unique features and creative elements stemming from their own perspectives.
The concern is particularly acute as many successful recent games, such as Vampire Survivors, Balatro, and Peak, are built on relatively simple core concepts. While these games have inspired many imitators, the issue highlighted by Anthropic's update pertains to the wholesale replication of codebases rather than riffing on game ideas.