On October 20, 2026, the South Korean game development group YNOT announced that it had ended distribution of the Steam demo for “Spookitchen,” a restaurant management simulation game developed and published by the group.
Growing Caution in the Indie Game Industry Regarding “AI-Generated Clones”
*Spookitchen* is a restaurant management simulation game in which players run “Spookitchen,” a restaurant visited by various monsters, and serve meals tailored to the monsters’ tastes. The game had garnered attention as a title packed with numerous features, including cute characters, ingredient gathering, recipe creation, and cooperative play for up to four players.
However, according to the developers, they received a report that someone was creating a complete AI-generated copy of the game. Out of concern that the game—which took a long time to create—would be entirely copied, they decided to take down the demo version.
The developers—a pair of sisters—have stated that they created the game with great care (see also the interview on 4Gamer.net). While they acknowledge that user feedback is essential for creating an enjoyable game and was a source of joy during development, they express their frustration at the current situation, where that connection has been undermined.
Additionally, the tower defense roguelike “ReVamp,” scheduled for release on Steam, has canceled its planned public playtest due to concerns about the recent trend of AI-generated clone games, and announced that it will first conduct a small-scale test on Discord.
Recently, the developer of *Papers, Please* has expressed concerns about AI-generated plagiarism, and the drinking game *PUKEY GODDESS SHOT TRICK*, featuring a beautiful demon, has canceled the release of its demo out of concern that AI-generated imitations might appear,switching to a closed beta format—and caution regarding AI-generated imitations is spreading, particularly within the indie gaming community.
Furthermore, situations are currently arising where clone games are created on platforms like Roblox the very same day based on ideas that went viral on social media, and where indie game developers are receiving threatening messages such as, “If you don’t pay the ransom, we’ll release the clone game first.”
The indie gaming community is reeling from this new problem of “AI-driven imitation.” Will a solution to this issue ever be found?
*Spookitchen* is scheduled to be released soon on PC (Steam).
