Anthropic has a new rule for Claude, it can no longer recreate games for you
AI can do a lot of things. It can code, it can complete tasks, and it can even make games. But if you are planning to recreate your favourite game, such as Minecraft or Candy Crush, there is some bad news for you. Anthropic is changing the way Claude makes games and you can no longer use the AI to recreate games that already exist. The company says that recreating games infringes IP rights which goes against its policy.
The change was first spotted on X. X user Chasm was among the first to report this change. The user shared a screenshot of Claude Code that had a new rule. “Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user’s own designs and assets,” the rule said. “Don’t build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original.” Users spotted the change on X.
Later, Addy Osmani, a member of Anthropic’s technical staff, confirmed the change. Osmani replied to the post, stating that recreating games was against Anthropic’s usage policy. “We added two sentences to Claude Code's prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer it away from recreating someone else's specific game because using Claude to infringe IP is against our usage policy,” he wrote. Anthropic's Addy Osmani confirmed the change. Claude can still make new gamesThis does not mean that Claude cannot make games at all. Rather, the AI can now only develop games that are original or do not focus on pre-existing IPs. “Original games, genre games, and games built from your own designs and assets are meant to keep working,” Addy Osmani said. “We'll continue to iterate to ensure we're striking the right balance. In the meantime, if Claude turns down something that's yours, send it my way.”
It is unclear whether a particular incident prompted the update. The change comes amid a rise in AI-assisted game recreations, including browser-based fan projects involving Halo: Combat Evolved, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Grand Theft Auto V.
The change also follows complaints about low-effort game clones on Steam during Steam Next Fest. Some indie developers have also cancelled plans for Steam demos, such as Alliance Arts and Who You, fearing that such demos may give someone enough access to recreate their games before the official release.
Meanwhile, some big names in the gaming industry are approaching AI with a more open approach. Fortnite maker Epic Games has encouraged developers to focus on AI generation for development with virtually no human-written code. Microsoft’s Xbox division has also set up Xbox Labs that will focus on using “emerging ideas” in game development, likely AI tools. As per Business Insider, Electronic Arts is also pushing for more aggressive AI use in the development of games.
Coming back to the game rule for Claude, it focusses on IP rights. Anthropic has previously faced intellectual property disputes. Last year, it agreed to pay a $1.5 billion settlement in a class action brought by 500,000 authors who accused it of using copyrighted material to train its models. More recently, Elvis Presley’s estate filed a similar lawsuit. Infringement of IP has been the centre of debate over AI chatbots by the likes of OpenAI and Google too.- EndsAlso Read | No more hand-written code: Fortnite maker Epic Games is moving towards AI first productionAlso Read | After 3200 layoffs, Asha Sharma launches Xbox Labs to make games with AIAlso Read | Anthropic sued over alleged use of 274 Elvis Presley songs to train AI
Armaan loves to keep an eye on everything happening in the world of tech and AI. You will find him testing new gadgets, exploring the latest LLMs and making sense of the emerging tech. When not working around tech, he will be exploring new music or catching up on motorsport or aviation.
