Anthropic recently changed Claude to "prevent IP infringement," altering the LLM's rules so it won't help copy existing games. One proudly pro-AI dev at work on a Pokemon fan game is starting to feel the heat, but vows to continue working on a vibe coded project that's already cost hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars.
"Anthropic has cracked down and Claude models are starting to refuse work on Pokemon fan projects," Big Kid Nation, the developer behind Pokemon Arena 2D, says on Twitter (via Retro Dodo). "All that money spent, never took a cent (unlike many others with itch io, patreon etc)."
How much money spent? "Up to $2,000 expenses a month," Big Kid Nation tweeted a month ago, alongside "10-14 hour days both learning and bulding for most of this year." The dev pushes back on accusations that the game is simply "AI slop," emphasizing the work that's been put into the project.
"My life went down hill. I lost everything. I'm here to achieve something. Pokemon is my entire childhood and this is everything to me now. I'll live in my car and set my computer up at the library every day if I have to keep going with 'AI slop.' Never gonna stop."
Claude's new rule states "don't build a recreation of a specific existing game," and in fairness, Pokemon Arena 2D is not a specific recreation of any existing Pokemon game. Instead, it's an arena battler where you select the moves your creatures should perform in real time. The visuals pull from a community-made Pokemon sprite library, but without the familiar critters and move names it might feel like a pretty fresh take on the creature battling genre.
But "using Claude to infringe IP is against our usage policy," Anthropic developer Addy Osmani tweeted a few weeks ago, and however distinct they may be from their inspirations, fan games are still acts of IP infringement. Without Claude's support, it's unclear how Pokemon Arena 2D will continue to live.
"It's almost exclusively vibe coded now," Big Kid Nation says in the project's Discord. "We are very pro AI for creative game development." The dev insists that it's "not because of 'Laziness' but because that's what's getting the best results. In quality and time. We want the best Pokemon project. We've got a growing human team though."
For now, though? "Our game is still set for December," Big Kid Nation promises. "Don't worry."
