Pokémon fan game developer reports Claude refusals after spending on AI tools

Claude declines Pokémon assets

A Pokémon fan developer who says the project spent up to 2,000 dollars a month building a fan game with AI tools has complained that Anthropic's Claude models now refuse to cooperate with it. The developer, known online as Big Kid Nation, posted about the change on X on 11 November, according to IGN Deutschland.

Big Kid Nation wrote that Anthropic had stepped in and that the Claude models were gradually refusing to work on Pokémon fan projects, IGN reported. The post included a screenshot in which Claude said it could no longer generate code intended for use with images it recognised as official Pokémon designs.

The developer said the project had never made any money despite the spending, unlike other similar projects funded through Patreon. Big Kid Nation also addressed Nintendo directly in the post, asking the company to make the Pokémon game fans want and offering to work for nothing.

A free fan game, two years in development

Big Kid Nation is developing Pokémon Arena 2D, a free pixel-art game with real-time arena battles. A description on BigKidNation.com says the project has been in development for two years and is free to play.

In an earlier post on X this month, Big Kid Nation said monthly expenses had reached 2,000 dollars and that the developer had spent 10 to 14 hours a day learning and building for most of this year and last. The developer rejected descriptions of the game as low-quality AI output, saying the PC was left running overnight to simulate battles and expose balance problems.

Big Kid Nation has argued that AI-assisted development, sometimes called vibe coding, suits people with ideas. The developer cited Poké Derby, a separately made Pokémon take on the Japanese horse-racing game Umamusume, as another original project of that kind. Comments on the post noted that the Pokémon version has not found success, according to IGN.

What is not yet known

The Pokémon Company has not commented publicly on Pokémon Arena 2D, and the source report does not say whether it has taken legal action against the project. It also does not say whether Anthropic changed a policy or whether the refusals come from the model's own safeguards.

Nintendo's next official Pokémon titles remain Pokémon Winds and Waves, announced for release exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2 next year.