Dev Deletes AI Steam Recreation After New Girlfriend Convinces Him It is Dangerous

An indie developer behind a Balatro-looking AI-generated roguelike card recreation that launched in 2025 has introduced that he’s deleting the sport from Steam after a woman he’s been courting for a bit helped him notice it was a “shame to all recreation makers.”

On January 10, the store page for indie card game Hardest on Steam posted a surprising update. In line with developer Eero Laine, he’ll be eradicating Hardest utterly from the Steam retailer on January 30. In line with the replace, Hardest was made in Summer season 2025 utilizing free instruments supplied by the developer’s college, and in response to him, on the time, he didn’t notice the impact that AI tech can have on folks’s jobs and the atmosphere. Hardest was launched on Steam in July 2025 and is free to play.

“I made [Hardest] throughout the summer time in couple months [sic] and thought to make use of AI as a result of in college there’s a lot brainwashing on college students and all of the instruments are given free of charge, so I might generate limitless photographs free of charge,” stated the developer on Steam in a submit titled AI Is Dangerous. “However I’ve realized the AI will not be really free, and it has a significant impact on the financial system and atmosphere. Some AI firms can use this recreation simply present as a motive the get extra funding for his or her AI firms[sic], that profit nobody, however moderately suck sources from the financial system from exhausting working folks.”

In line with Laine, he coded “the whole lot” himself in Hardest, so sooner or later, he would possibly attempt to construct a brand new recreation with “actual belongings” utilizing his previous non-AI code. Laine concluded the Steam replace with: “However the recreation present in its present type is a shame to all recreation makers and gamers. Ethically solely logical motive is to delete the sport from Steam. The lady I’ve been courting for a month made me notice this.”

I’m not one hundred pc positive, however I feel this is likely to be the primary time somebody has deleted a recreation from Steam as a result of their new associate satisfied them it was a shame and ought to be faraway from the planet. Harsh, however within the case of AI-generated slop, correct. Kudos to that younger girl for performing some good work. And I hope Laine’s subsequent recreation is nice and never crammed with ugly AI-generated artwork.