An indie developer allegedly faked a $200 AI-clone extortion to boost wishlists, and now real scammers are copying the trick

On October 18, Takashi Mochibe, creator of the tactical RPG “Dragon’s Chronicles”, posted on X that he had received an email demanding $200 to stop the sender from cloning his game with AI and releasing it first on Steam. His reply: “Isn’t that pretty cheap?”. He added that the email included no video or file proving the clone existed.