Japanese Dev Turns AI Extortion Into 38,400% Wishlist Surge

What would you do if a stranger demanded $200 in Steam cards—or they'd use AI to clone your game and release it first? One Japanese indie developer found out, and his response turned a scam into a massive win.

Meet Takashi Mochibe, the solo dev behind Dragon's Chronicles ~Sousei no Reginleiv~, a hardcore strategy RPG he describes as made for "hardcore SRPG nerds who love big boobs and think political correctness sucks." He's blunt about it: the game is tough, the English localization was done with ChatGPT, and it's absolutely not for everyone. But just before Steam Next Fest kicked off in October, an anonymous email landed in his inbox.

The sender demanded $200 in Steam cards within 24 hours. If Mochibe didn't pay, they'd release an AI-made copy of his game first and tank its commercial value. The email claimed to include a video proving they could do it—but there was no video attached. Mochibe replied that if they could really make a more fun SRPG than his, he'd gladly pay $200 for it. Then he posted the whole exchange on social media to warn other developers about this new type of scam.

He suspected it was a spam campaign sent en masse, not a targeted attack. "If they really looked at the DC Sousei store page and thought about copying it, they'd have to be incredibly bold," he wrote. His warning resonated—and then the media picked up the story.

The results were wild. According to Mochibe, Dragon's Chronicles saw a 38,400% increase in wishlists compared to the previous day. He compared the number to something you'd only see in a Momotaro Dentetsu comeback. He also received a flood of encouraging messages from players, which he said motivated him even more.

So he did something cheeky: he emailed the extortionist again, asking if they could send threats regularly since the attention was basically free advertising. No reply yet. Undeterred, Mochibe added "Extortionist" to the game's credits under a "PR/Assistant Promotion" role to commemorate the whole saga.

Dragon's Chronicles ~Sousei no Reginleiv~ now has a demo out in English and Japanese during Steam Next Fest, with the full release planned for early 2027. The English version was machine-translated, and Mochibe openly apologizes for any rough edges—blaming ChatGPT, naturally.

Will you be checking out the demo? And what do you think about AI extortion targeting indie devs? Let us know in the comments!