Developers say AI clones helped promote Scale the Depths

Glass Gecko Games, creators of the fishing game Scale the Depths, saw early success after winning the 2024 GMTK game jam. Lead artist Serpexnessie wrote on Reddit that the core gameplay was "incredibly addictive," and a browser build on itch.io drew two to three thousand views a week and surpassed 7,000 wishlists by the end of the year.

The attention invited copies. Clones ripped the browser version and ran it through AI filters, growing so numerous that, "It eventually became unrealistic for us to try to take all of these down without significant effort and taking time away from development," Serpexnessie said.

Some of the knockoffs ran ads using footage from YouTubers and were poorly rated because they were packed with ads and microtransactions. Glass Gecko later secured a publisher and released a Steam demo in 2025, which increased interest but also led to more clones.

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