Lucas Pope, the indie developer behind critically acclaimed titles Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, has gone quiet on his work-in-progress projects. In a recent podcast interview, Pope revealed he's stopped sharing details out of fear they'll be 'slurped up by AI' or outright copied. This isn't paranoia—it's a calculated response to an industry where bots vacuum up every pixel and prototype shared online.

Pope discussed this shift on the Mike & Rami Are Still Here podcast, hosted by former No More Room in Hell developer Mike Rose and Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail. 'You don’t really talk about stuff when you’re working on it because I don’t know it’s going to get slurped up by AI or people are going to copy it or something else like that,' he said. Working solo at his computer, Pope prioritizes finishing projects over hype-building, but the AI threat has turned even casual updates into risks. He also expressed reluctance to release a major new game, wary of failing to match his past successes.

The revelation hit r/pcgaming like a glitch in the matrix, with a thread linking the VGC coverage racking up 3.5K upvotes and sparking heated debate on AI's chokehold on creativity. X reactions echo the concern, with outlets like VGC and PCGamesN amplifying Pope's words to hundreds of likes and shares. As more devs follow suit, the scrapers win by default—forcing silence where transparency once thrived.