A planned demo for Russian roulette-inspired game Drunken Goddess Reflux, now the 65th most-wishlisted game on Steam according to SteamDB, has been canceled in large part because the developers fear someone using AI will steal their ideas and rush out a copycat.
In a Steam post, co-developer and publisher Alliance Arts, already known for anime girlfailure hit Needy Streamer Overload, confirms that the October 19 demo release will be replaced by a closed playtest with stricter rules.
Concerns around AI theft weren't the only factor in this decision, Alliance Arts says. "We had planned to release the demo publicly with certain restrictions on posting and streaming gameplay videos, but concluded that we are not currently in a position to properly handle and manage those restrictions," the studio adds.
However, the studio's inability to control how its game spreads online feeds right into its worries around AI. "We are concerned that, based on the content of the demo, works imitating or replicating this game's presentation and gameplay could be quickly produced using AI or other tools and released ahead of the game's launch," Alliance Arts says.
This decision comes amid an explosion of AI-fueled game reverse-engineering and recomps, notably following the release of Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5.
Instead of this demo, the studio will "hold online play sessions in a closed environment, open to those who have reviewed and agreed in advance to the participation requirements and the rules on posting and streaming gameplay videos."
Easy access to AI tools has enabled a rise in fast-follow games looking to cash in on somebody else's idea. Ripoffs are not new to games, but the speed at which vulture devs can turn them around has increased considerably thanks to AI.
Steam breakout Meccha Chameleon was quickly copied by an AI-aided game, and copycat culture has also seen popular unreleased games like Family Time copied point-for-point on Steam.
I keep up with a lot of game devs and dev communities, and I'm seeing more and more concerns in this vein. Heck, indie veteran Lucas Pope, known for Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, won't even talk about his next game because that risks it "getting slurped up by AI or people are gonna copy it."
Rather than Papers, Please, Drunken Goddess Reflux reminds me a bit of Buckshot Roulette. At a bar in Hell, sitting opposite an anime demon girl "who'd kill for you–or kill you," you down shot after shot hoping to drink the demon under the table. "Survive the night, and savor seven flavors of ruin," the game's Steam page entreats.
