On October 20, Korean game development team YNOT announced that it would stop releasing the Steam demo for the restaurant management simulation game Spookitchen. The team stated that they received information indicating someone was using AI to fully replicate the game, and decided to remove the public demo to prevent their long-term project from being entirely copied.
Spookitchen is made by two sisters. In the game, players run a restaurant catering to various monsters, serving food according to guests' preferences. The game includes content such as collecting ingredients and crafting recipes, and supports cooperative play for up to four players.
The developers stated that player feedback has always been an indispensable part of refining the game and a source of enjoyment during development, but this suspected cloning incident has shaken this approach to open communication. What can be confirmed at present is that the team took preventive measures based on the information received; it cannot yet be determined that the related cloned works have been publicly released or constitute infringement.
Similar situations have affected other indie games. Reshape canceled its scheduled public demo, switching first to small-scale testing within Discord; Vomit Goddess Shooting Stunt also withdrew its demo due to concerns about AI imitation, opting for closed testing instead. Some developers worry that once their ideas go viral on social media, they will be quickly turned into clone games on platforms like Roblox, and some have even received extortion messages threatening to release clones ahead of the original.
Spookitchen is still planned for release on Steam, with only a "coming soon" status confirmed at this time; no specific release date has been announced.