Digital Sun Games, the studio behind Moonlighter and Cataclismo, has postponed a public Steam playtest for its upcoming game ReVamp. The studio says it is worried that people could use generative AI to copy the game before it comes out, according to Rock Paper Shotgun.
Instead, the studio will start with a smaller closed playtest on its Discord server beginning October 29. It hopes to run the public Steam playtest in January. In a statement quoted by Rock Paper Shotgun, the developers said recent reports of games being reverse-engineered, cloned and released before the originals had concerned them. With launch still several months off, they said, putting out a large public build was “too big a risk.”
The studio also called on storefronts to do more. “Showing games early is how indies get seen and find the fans who keep us going, so we hope platforms keep strengthening protections for original work,” the developers said. Rock Paper Shotgun notes that they didn’t say what kind of protections they want.
Rock Paper Shotgun describes ReVamp as a tower defense game with rearrangeable, modular towers in which the player takes the role of Dracula. The game has no release date yet.
Digital Sun isn’t the only studio pulling back. Rock Paper Shotgun reports that the creators of Drunken Goddess Reflux cancelled a planned demo last week over similar fears. Those developers said a demo could be used to quickly copy the game’s presentation and gameplay with AI or other tools, and that the copies could launch before their own release. According to the outlet, Digital Sun pointed to that story when it shared its decision, and other developers have reacted in similar ways in recent days.
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