The developers of indie game Drunken Goddess Reflux have canceled an upcoming public demo, partly out of worry that AI tools could clone the game before it launches.
Rock Paper Shotgun spotted the cancellation. In a post on X, Alliance Arts said it will hold closed sessions for a "limited number of participants" instead. "We're concerned that the demo's content could be used to quickly imitate or replicate the game's presentation and gameplay with AI or other tools, and that such works could be released before our launch," the developers wrote. The game's premise is to drink alcohol until a demon vomits up her soul.
AI was not the only reason. The studio also cited difficulty enforcing a rule against livestreaming the demo.
The fear has some backing. Kotaku reported earlier this year that indie games were being cloned with AI quickly and effortlessly, and Steam has recently filled up with games that used AI in their development. Clones may not match a hand-made original, but they can still cut into a developer's revenue and blur which game came first in the public eye.
The odd premise offers little protection here. A copycat does not need to invent anything, only to reproduce what a demo shows. For a small studio, a public demo is the one point where a nearly finished game is handed out for free, which makes it the most exposed moment before launch. The studio's concern is also about timing: a lookalike that ships first. The post describes a risk, not an existing clone.
Closed sessions shrink that exposure, but they also shrink the audience that sees the game early. Whether other small studios weigh the same tradeoff and land in the same place is the open question.