{"id":939260,"date":"2026-10-19T21:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939260\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T21:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:26:12","slug":"ai-game-clones-are-making-indie-developers-afraid-to-show-their-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939260\/","title":{"rendered":"AI game clones are making indie developers afraid to show their work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cY\u2019know it kinda disincentivizes me from sharing progress when there are slop ghouls around every corner, AI or otherwise,\u201d Holm\u00e9r wrote<\/a> in response to the spread of those preemptive clones. \u201cLuckily these people are incapable of original thought and don\u2019t know how to elevate this concept beyond what they\u2019ve already seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

McPixel developer Sos Sosowski<\/a> has been documenting numerous examples<\/a> of fellow indie devs complaining of AI-generated clones making wholesale copies of their efforts. Sosowski says the situation puts indie developers in a hopeless bind when trying to promote their work: \u201cDon\u2019t share your game\u2014no sales. Share your game\u2014gets stolen,\u201d he wrote. \u201cHow do you even survive as an indie in the current landscape? This is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Greenman, who posted one of those AI-powered clones of Holm\u00e9r\u2019s rotational Tetris game earlier this year, told 404 Media<\/a> that he didn\u2019t see anything wrong with what he did. \u201cI feel like I had this brand new creation,\u201d Greenman said. \u201cWhen it gets to that point, is one song copying another? Is one game copying another? Whoever created Blox, Jenga, is that a copy of Tetris?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some think that added complexity and originality is the best true protection from blatant clones in this kind of environment. \u201cIf AI can copy your game overnight, it wasn\u2019t a real game. It was just a quick cash grab built on a single mechanic, with no soul or vision,\u201d Howltide Games\u2019 Ivan Lago wrote on social media<\/a>. \u201cAI isn\u2019t cloning actual games. It\u2019s just making cheap knockoffs of stuff that was already an asset flip to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even if your game idea is cloned by AI slop merchants, that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t build out the better version you always pictured. \u201cIn the very beginning, that first week, just every day there was a new AI clone [of the rotational Tetris prototype]. I was like, OK, well fuck me, I guess,\u201d Holm\u00e9r told 404 Media<\/a> this summer. \u201cBut there\u2019s way less engagement 1792445172, and I feel more in the clear to take my time to actually make something right, something good I can be proud of, and not just get it out there as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cY\u2019know it kinda disincentivizes me from sharing progress when there are slop ghouls around every corner, AI or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-939260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}