Anthropic Limits Game Clones in Claude Code

Anthropic adjusts Claude Code's behavior to discourage the recreation of existing games. This modification, applied at the system prompt level of Opus 5.5, comes with a reminder of intellectual property rules and a commitment to original projects.

Promised adjustments and unanswered questions

Anthropic plans to continue making adjustments to find a balance between aiding game development and respecting intellectual property. Addy Osmani invites users to contact him if Claude refuses content that belongs to them. A request has been made to Anthropic to find out if other system prompts for Claude have been or will be modified, but no specific response has been provided at this stage. Osmani did not confirm the exact wording seen in a screenshot shared online.

What is allowed and what is excluded

Anthropic states that it does not want Claude Code to be used to create direct clones of existing games. Original games, titles within a genre, and creations based on user designs and resources remain permitted. The company reminds users that using Claude to infringe on intellectual property goes against its usage policy. Therefore, the tool remains accessible for game creation within these limits.

The update comes through Claude Code's prompt on Opus 5.5

Addy Osmani explains that Claude Code's prompt has been modified on Opus 5.5, with the addition of two phrases aimed at steering the tool away from recreating a specific game belonging to others. The previous week, a user on X published a screenshot seemingly illustrating these additions, with text calling for the production of original games and not recreating an existing title. More broadly, this modification aims to prevent the use of Claude Code to reproduce games that have already been released, as retro gaming sees a surge in AI-generated projects.