Claude’s new rules against game cloning won’t stop the AI copying boom

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Last week, Anthropic introduced a new system prompt designed to stop its Claude models from re-creating specific, existing video games. While that move could help shield Anthropic from some liability, it’s unlikely to slow much of the massive wave of AI-assisted game porting and copying that has emerged in recent months.

上周，Anthropic 引入了一项新的系统提示词，旨在阻止其 Claude 模型重新创建特定的现有电子游戏。虽然此举可能有助于保护 Anthropic 免受部分法律责任，但它不太可能减缓近几个月来出现的 AI 辅助游戏移植和复制浪潮。

A social media user and AI decompilation enthusiast going by the name “chasm” was among the first to note the prompt change late last week, saying a new rule seemed to be added to the Claude Code prompt on or around October 27. That rule—included in a json file under the name “tengu_heron_brook”—reads as follows: Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user’s own designs and assets. Don’t build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original.

一位名为“chasm”的社交媒体用户兼 AI 反编译爱好者是上周晚些时候首批注意到提示词变更的人之一，他表示在 10 月 27 日左右，Claude Code 的提示词中似乎增加了一条新规则。该规则包含在一个名为“tengu_heron_brook”的 JSON 文件中，内容如下：可以构建原创游戏、特定类型的游戏以及基于用户自身设计和资产的游戏。不要构建特定现有游戏的复刻版，即使它被重命名或被称为原创。

XDA later independently verified that the new rule appears in version 2.1.314 of the Claude Code binary, which was released on October 30. XDA also reported that the “tengu_heron_brook” rule had been used for other purposes in earlier versions and that the Claude Opus 5.5 model specifically seemed to have its own distinct and independent instructions restricting game recreations as part of its system prompt bundle.

XDA 随后独立核实了该新规则出现在 10 月 30 日发布的 Claude Code 二进制文件 2.1.314 版本中。XDA 还报道称，“tengu_heron_brook”规则在早期版本中曾被用于其他目的，并且 Claude Opus 5.5 模型似乎拥有其独特且独立的指令，作为其系统提示词包的一部分来限制游戏复刻。

Following chasm’s initial report, Anthropic software engineer Addy Osmani confirmed on social media that the company had “added two sentences to Claude Code’s prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer it away from recreating someone else’s specific game because using Claude to infringe IP is against our usage policy.” He added that the new prompt was designed to still allow “original games, genre games, and games built from your own designs and assets,” even as a handful of issue reports on Anthropic’s GitHub suggest the new prompt is getting in the way of some game development use cases.

在 chasm 的初步报告发布后，Anthropic 软件工程师 Addy Osmani 在社交媒体上证实，该公司“在 Opus 5.5 的 Claude Code 提示词中增加了两句话，以引导其避免重新创建他人的特定游戏，因为使用 Claude 侵犯知识产权违反了我们的使用政策。”他补充说，新的提示词旨在继续允许“原创游戏、类型游戏以及基于用户自身设计和资产构建的游戏”，尽管 Anthropic GitHub 上的一些问题报告表明，新的提示词正在阻碍某些游戏开发用例。

Anthropic’s new prompt comes as AI coding tools are powering a deluge of game projects based on existing work in one way or another. That includes thrown-together copies of game demos that are making some developers afraid to show their early work publicly, as well as thousands of AI-powered decompilation and porting projects for retro games.

Anthropic 的新提示词出台之际，AI 编程工具正推动着大量基于现有作品的游戏项目涌现。这包括一些拼凑而成的游戏演示副本，导致一些开发者不敢公开展示他们的早期作品，同时也包括数以千计用于复古游戏的 AI 驱动反编译和移植项目。

Thanks to AI tools, what used to be a time-consuming process requiring painstaking human effort is now orders of magnitude more efficient (though some veteran coders complain that these vibe-coded ports and decomp projects fail to clear the same quality bar as human-centered efforts).

得益于 AI 工具，过去需要耗费大量人力、极其耗时的过程，现在效率提高了几个数量级（尽管一些资深程序员抱怨这些通过“感觉”编码的移植和反编译项目无法达到人工开发项目的质量标准）。

While Anthropic’s new prompt can be seen as a noble effort to push back against the flood of AI-powered, vibe-coded copying, it seems unlikely to have much impact overall. That’s primarily because eager game copiers can simply shift to any of the other frontier models that haven’t introduced such restrictions.

虽然 Anthropic 的新提示词可以被视为抵制 AI 驱动的“感觉”编码复制浪潮的一种高尚努力，但它似乎不太可能产生太大的整体影响。这主要是因为热衷于复制游戏的人可以简单地转向其他尚未引入此类限制的前沿模型。

And even if the AI industry as a whole began to bar this kind of use case, coders could switch to cheaper open-weight models that aren’t subject to these kinds of restrictions and are not all that far behind in capabilities.

即使整个 AI 行业开始禁止此类用例，程序员也可以转向更便宜的开放权重模型，这些模型不受此类限制，且在能力上并不落后太多。

The prompt may have a more immediate benefit for Anthropic, helping protect the company from potential liability for copyright infringement in these projects. We’ve seen how AI companies face legal headaches if their models generate images based on copyrighted works, for instance. As Osmani noted in confirming the new anti-game copying prompt, “Using Claude to infringe IP is against our usage policy”—a policy that’s surely in place to protect the company legally.

该提示词可能对 Anthropic 有更直接的好处，即帮助公司免受这些项目中潜在的版权侵权责任。例如，我们已经看到 AI 公司在模型生成基于受版权保护作品的图像时面临法律困扰。正如 Osmani 在确认新的反游戏复制提示词时所指出的，“使用 Claude 侵犯知识产权违反了我们的使用政策”——这项政策显然是为了在法律上保护公司。

On the other hand, there’s a risk that Anthropic’s efforts could prove too restrictive, limiting transformative game projects that build off existing work. Take, for instance, the increasingly popular trend of using AI to merge two different game concepts into one, adding Mario to Elden Ring or Spider-Man to Batman: Arkham Knight, for instance.

另一方面，Anthropic 的努力也存在过于严苛的风险，可能会限制那些基于现有作品构建的变革性游戏项目。例如，现在越来越流行使用 AI 将两种不同的游戏概念融合在一起，比如将马里奥加入《艾尔登法环》，或者将蜘蛛侠加入《蝙蝠侠：阿卡姆骑士》。