Anthropic Blocks Claude From Cloning Existing Games, Irking Devs
Anthropic has told Claude not to recreate specific existing games, even under a new name. Developers say the rule is also hitting legitimate reverse-engineering work.
Anthropic has changed the system prompt of its AI models so that Claude no longer helps recreate specific existing games. The passage appears in the prompts of Claude Code and Claude Opus 5.5 and prohibits the "recreation of specific existing games", even if developers give the result a different name.
The company has confirmed the change and pointed to possible intellectual property violations. Anthropic employee Addy Osmani said on X that such clones breach the usage policies. The move also looks like an attempt to shield the company from potential copyright lawsuits.
Legitimate projects caught in the net
Help with game development remains allowed when users work with their own designs and materials. In practice, though, the stricter rule seems to reach further than intended. Reports are piling up on GitHub that Claude also refuses to reproduce game mechanics or patch game code. Reverse-engineering analyses of games are reportedly blocked as well, and the widely used tool Reverse Engineer Anything seems to be affected.
According to posts on Reddit and other platforms, developers outside gaming are running into refusals too, for example when analyzing a Windows crash or removing junkware from a smart TV. It cannot be verified whether every complaint concerns a legitimate use case. In some instances, however, well-known and credible developers have objected.
Background: copies and leaks
AI-generated copies have been causing growing unease in the games industry. Ideas shared ahead of a release or circulating demos can be misused with AI assistance to build knock-offs, and attempts at blackmail have been part of the picture.
Anthropic says it wants to adjust the rules to find "a balance". Osmani wrote on X that anyone whose own work Claude refuses to touch in the meantime should send him the example. Until the prompt is revised, developers working on reverse engineering or game patches should expect further refusals.
Apps worth a look
SUMO: the number puzzleTap the right tiles, add them up, hit the target. Easy to learn, hard to master. Free, for all ages.
Dialo: learn languages by speakingTalk to an AI conversation partner; every sentence comes back corrected and explained in your language. 9 languages, A1 to C2.
ediviewer: read EDI files like documentsOpen EDIFACT and X12 messages, see every segment explained, convert to JSON/XML, export PDF and Excel. Runs locally, no upload.
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