THIS IS F*CKING UNREAL, CLAUDE CODE NOW REFUSES TO BUILD COPIES OF EXISTING GAMES
A SERVER-SIDE RULE. NO SETTING. NO ANNOUNCEMENT.

since ~oct 27 devs hit the same line: "don't build a recreation of a specific existing game."

and claude shows up in most AI game rebuilds:

a public tracker lists 295 AI game reverse-engineering projects as of oct 31. claude is named in 245 of the 269 that name a model. gpt 36, open models 6, gemini 1. 118 were added in the last 7 days.

WHAT THE CLAUDE CODE RULE BLOCKS AND ALLOW

→ blocked: one specific existing game, renamed or called original
→ allowed: original games, genre games, your own designs and assets
→ unclear: ports, decompilation, mods, work for people who own the rights
→ separate from it: cyber safeguards flagged anti-cheat code and a security review of a dev's own game

the case: a studio that builds digital versions of board wargames for clients who own them filed a github issue on oct 30. the support bot said the policy has no exceptions. anthropic hasn't confirmed the rule, and the changelog doesn't mention it.

THE ORIGINALITY PROMPT FOR CLAUDE CODE
give claude code your game design doc, then ask:

"1. list every mechanic, name, asset and level that matches a specific existing game. don't write any code yet.
2. for each match, propose an original replacement that keeps the genre feel.
3. rewrite the spec with only my own designs and assets, and mark anything i'd need rights for.
4. stop there and wait for my yes before you build anything."

start with one level before expanding.

fair line on copying, or a wall for people who own the rights?