Indie devs clash in dispute over ‘copying’ games about peeling potatoes

Two indie developers have become embroiled in a dispute over competing games about peeling potatoes, with one creator accusing the other of copying his idea with the help of AI.

At the center of the row are 1,000,000 Potatoes, from independent developer Rado Klasa, and Golden Horn Studios' Potato Please. Both are first-person, physics-driven games built around peeling potatoes, while also sharing military-inspired settings.

Klasa first showed off his project in July after developing the concept for a GMTK game jam. However, he hadn't yet launched its Steam page, instead continuing to work on how the game played.

Then, when Indie Game Joe shared a trailer for Potato Please on X, Klasa subsequently accused Golden Horn of copying his concept.

Potato Please devs deny 'cloning' 1,000,000 Potatoes with AI

“It's every indie dev’s worst nightmare," he said. "I held off on my Steam page to obsessively polish the mechanics... and it just got cloned and shipped. Probably mostly with a simple AI prompt.”

He later argued that the time spent refining 1,000,000 Potatoes would ultimately distinguish the two games, adding: “It hurts to see a rushed clone beat me to market, but I refuse to let a cheap copy win.”

However, Golden Horn Studios strongly denies copying anything and says its developers hadn't encountered Klasa's game before the accusations appeared. According to the studio, Potato Please instead grew out of a potato meme.

https://twitter.com/potatopleasee/status/2102026465697034286?s=20

"We need to address this directly. Calling our game a 'clone' and implying it was made with 'a simple AI prompt' are serious accusations," Golden Horn said in response. "Similar concepts are not evidence of copying.”

The studio also pushed back against the AI allegation, saying “real people” had spent "significant time designing, modelling, coding, and developing" the game.

"We’re happy to discuss genuine similarities, but publicly presenting speculation about our team and our work as fact is unfair," they added.

Rado Klasa is yet to acknowledge the response at the time of writing, but it's clear that the makers of Potato Please strongly deny copying 1,000,000 Potatoes.

This comes just after an indie dev revealed his wife was a voice actor in his game after being accused of using AI, while another urged players to pirate their game instead of using code resellers.