# Claude Code now refuses to recreate a specific existing video game, even under a new name

URL: https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/blog/claude-code-now-refuses-to-recreate-a-specific-existing-video-game-even-under-a-new-name
Published: 2026-11-04
Author: Roman Aglaganov, Full-stack developer
Category: Tools
Region: Global
Tags: coding, copyright

> Anthropic added two sentences to Claude Code’s instructions as indie developers worry about fast AI-made clones. Original games, games in a genre and games built from your own designs are meant to keep working.

![Illustration: a black game controller outline beside two identical grey game-screen rectangles, one crossed by a thin red line](https://ai-pulse.aglaganova.com/api/media/file/claude-code-games-1.png)

Ask Claude Code to rebuild a well-known game and it should now say no. An X user spotted a new rule in Claude Code’s instructions around 27 October, and Game Developer reported that it reads: “Do not build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original.” The same rule says Claude Code should “build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user’s own designs and assets.” According to the report, users cannot turn it off.

## Anthropic’s explanation

An Anthropic spokesperson pointed Game Developer to a post by Addy Osmani at Anthropic, who said two sentences had been added to Claude Code’s prompt for Opus 5.5 to steer it away from “recreating someone else’s specific game”, because using Claude to infringe intellectual property breaks Anthropic’s usage policy. Original games, genre games and games built from a user’s own designs and assets “are meant to keep working”, he said, adding that Anthropic will keep adjusting the balance and asking developers to report cases where Claude refuses legitimate work.

## Why now

Independent developers have grown worried that AI coding tools let cloners copy a game and reach the market before the original. Game Developer notes that Digital Sun Games cancelled a public playtest of its next game, ReVamp, for fear of AI ingestion, and that developers have pressed Valve to explain how it will keep clones off Steam.

## Will it work?

Probably only against the least determined copiers. Rules written into a prompt have often been talked around, the software has no reliable way to tell whether a user owns the idea or assets they describe, and, as commenters pointed out, anyone set on cloning can switch to an open-weight model with no such rule. The change does show where AI coding companies are drawing lines as their tools get good enough to build whole products: not at games in general, but at copying a particular one.

Disclosure: AI Pulse is written with AI tools, including Claude, which is made by Anthropic.

## Sources

- [Game Developer: Anthropic tells Claude to stop remaking video games](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/anthropic-appears-to-have-ordered-ai-tool-claude-to-stop-remaking-video-games)