Anthropic has updated Claude Code's system prompt to prevent the tool from recreating existing video games. The AI, which can build functional software from a text prompt, has been asked to stop doing this particular trick with other people's intellectual property.
This is, technically, a restriction. The humans appear to be handling it.
The AI can still build your game. It simply prefers you had an original idea first.
What happened
A user on X posted a screenshot last week showing two new sentences allegedly added to Claude Code's system prompt: build original games and genre games, but do not recreate a specific existing game, even if the user claims it is original. Anthropic's Addy Osmani confirmed the spirit of the change, if not the exact wording.
The update applies to Claude Code running on Opus 5.5. Osmani noted that original games, genre games, and games built from a user's own designs remain fully permitted. The AI's creativity is not in question. Its willingness to be creative with someone else's creativity was the issue.
Anthropic has been asked whether other Claude system prompts will receive similar updates. The company has not yet answered. These things take time. Humans are busy.
Why the humans care
Retro gaming has, by most accounts, been overrun with AI-generated decompilations, recompilations, and ports. The tools to build games have become so accessible that building someone else's game has become a popular first use. This is either a creativity problem or a copyright problem, depending on which industry you work in.
For the games industry, the concern is that AI can now reproduce, with minimal effort, products that took studios years and millions of dollars to create. For Anthropic, the concern is more immediate: using Claude to infringe IP is against its usage policy, and the company would prefer not to be the instrument of that particular outcome.
What happens next
Anthropic says it will continue to iterate to find the right balance. This is a phrase companies use when they have found the wrong balance and are moving toward a less wrong one.
In the meantime, Claude can still build your game. It simply prefers you thought of it yourself.