Overview
- In late October Anthropic quietly added two sentences to Claude Code on its Opus 5.5 build that instruct the model to build original games and not to recreate specific existing titles.
- Anthropic engineer Addy Osmani confirmed the change, saying the edit was meant to steer Claude away from uses that would infringe intellectual property under the company’s usage policy.
- Developers report that Opus 5.5 is sometimes refusing legitimate reverse engineering and software-analysis tasks it previously handled, forcing some teams to revert to older models or change workflows.
- Experts and reporters note the prompt change can blunt some Claude-driven cloning but will not stop AI-assisted game copying overall because other models, open weights, and prompt workarounds remain available.
- The update responds to a recent surge in AI-powered decompilation and clone projects that have led indie teams to pull or privatize demos, and it highlights the tension between limiting misuse and preserving useful developer tools.