Computer gaming is going to evolve into something new. The writing is on the wall. Give it a couple more years and a kiddie script coder will be able to recreate pretty much any game from scratch. I think games are going to become more collaborative and the AAA game studios are going to lose their asses because they won't be able to adapt.

Isn't this capitalism? A few decades ago the game industry feared illegal copies would destroy it. We got all kind of crappy copyright protections.

Usually when something is great, people want to use it, distribute it, and improve it. If everything is closed sources and guarded for profit, arts and music would be very different. Everyone is "inspired" by others, even if they all think it's their own idea. Even languages copy on each other.

If the goal is only to make a game for profit, keep it exclusive, I can't say I have a lot of sympathy.

EDIT: In the 80ies there were clones of popular games too, and the industry complained about copies, and survived. https://1900hotdog.com/2020/06/nerding-day-donkey-kong-ripoffs/

Shovelware gets harder to sell? I'd count that as a win!

I’m tired

Yes and that is you, the studio and publisher that thinks creating games is a factory for making money for the investors and publishers.

But it is not.

It was always art

They can only copy some things, what makes your art special is that you made it. People can feel that. Also it's moonlighter, it's not like it's a super unique game in the first place.

Don't let them take the overhand. Showcase your game for the fans. There will always be people copying or pirating your work. Keep doing the stuff you do and it will pay off (hopefully). Look at Zelda, its copied so often, yet it does not matter for the original. There are so many racing games, each of them is like a copy from another. Same for fighting games. Yet fans are fans of the originals and games are still good.

I don't think its a good idea to not showcase your game, because someone can copy it.

This is just how capitalism work in general. Imagine how many amazing ideas don't see the light of day because the creators know the markets will steal it, fuck them over, introduce a worse version to the world and then bin it when it has no more value. Capitalists are thieves, plain and simple and AI has newly empowered them in the software sector.

Okay, so some games are more susceptible to this. No Man’s Sky. But half of the glory of Balatro is the weird jokers. Or on a story-based RPG, all the writing. Or a doom-like, the levels. It seems like what makes it less cloneable is the human touch.