Anthropic has updated its Claude AI coding assistant to prevent users from recreating existing video games, following growing concerns about AI-assisted game cloning. The change aims to protect game developers' intellectual property as AI tools make it easier to copy game mechanics, code and other elements of existing titles.
The restriction was introduced in Claude Code's instructions for its Opus 5.5 model. It tells the AI to support original game development but refuse requests to recreate a specific existing game, even if users rename it or describe the project as original.
The change was first spotted by an X user named Chasm. Anthropic's technical staff member Addy Osmani later confirmed the update, explaining that two sentences had been added to Claude Code's prompt.
Osmani said the move was intended to prevent users from using Claude to infringe intellectual property rights, which already violates the company's usage policy. He also clarified that developers can continue building original games, projects based on broader genres and titles using their own designs and assets.
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The update comes amid growing frustration among independent game developers over AI-generated copies of their work. Some studios fear that publicly available demos and early game builds could be analyzed using AI tools and turned into competing products before their original releases.
Digital Sun Games, the studio behind Moonlighter, recently canceled a planned public playtest of its upcoming game ReVamp over concerns that its work could be copied. Other developers have also questioned how platforms such as Steam plan to address the growing number of game clones.
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However, Anthropic's latest safeguards have raised concerns among developers who use AI for legitimate technical work. Some users have reported Claude refusing requests involving their own games, modifications, and reverse-engineering tasks.
The company has acknowledged the need to refine its approach and invited developers whose original projects are incorrectly rejected to report the issue. How effectively Claude can distinguish copyright infringement from legitimate game development remains to be seen.