Game developer deletes game from Steam after romantic encounter that changed his mind about AI
On 11 Jan, the indie game developer behind ‘Hardest’ made a post on Steam declaring his intent to delete the game after a girl he had been dating for a month changed his mind about AI use.
Eero Laine, who goes by Rakuel online, said that he sees no choice but to remove his creation from the platform.
He says the deletion will take effect on 30 Jan.
“The game existing in its current form is a disgrace to all game makers and players,” he wrote in the announcement titled ‘AI is bad, game will be deleted 30.1’.
Source: Steam
Game only became well known after developer announced his intent to delete it
Released in July 2025, ‘Hardest’ is a relatively unknown game with mixed reviews. According to Steamdb, the game only has only seen a peak of five concurrent players. Typically, it only averages two or three players a day.
Source: Steam
In comparison, Balatro, another card game, has an all-time peak of 43,905 concurrent players.
Other than the game’s coding, all assets within the game, including music and artwork, have been created using AI.
However, the code, sound effects, general logic and game concept was done by Mr Laine.
Despite its obscurity, the free-to-play game gained a lot of attention due to the 26-year-old’s announcement of his deletion.
Source: Steam
Responding to queries from MS News, Mr Laine explained the reasoning and the series of events that led to his decision.
The self-described rapper and software developer said he had been out at a local bar when he met a woman who liked his energy.
As the night progressed, he offered to let her listen to some of his original music. That was when the woman took issue with his use of AI.
Romantic encounter turns into conversation about AI and creativity
Pointing out the AI voice that Mr Laine had used to sing parts of his songs, the woman noted that it “takes the feeling away” from the music.
Reflecting on her words, he said: “There is just this sense of cheating, that you trust the artist makes the art with hard labor and an actual vision. Using AI breaks the spell so to say.”
His date’s words struck a chord, prompting him to remove all his songs from Spotify that used AI, and the game he made last year using AI.
Source: @saunaeero on Instagram
He made it clear that this was not simply reactionary and that he is committed to rejecting AI use — something that even his university professors had encouraged when he was a student.
Mr Laine took issue with how higher institutes of learning are pushing students to harness AI.
“Use these tools in all assignments, and tell us how you used, so we can all better use AI,” he recalled his professors saying.
“Everyone will need to learn these. And you in the university can be thankful [that] you have free unlimited use to these tools for practice.”
He describes feeling as though he was being “brainwashed” into using such tools.
Surprised by his five minutes of fame
The Finnish software developer also expressed surprise at the attention he has received online since the news went viral.
“I tried to make all these TikTok posts and other social media marketing to get attention to my game or rap music, and nothing has ever gotten more than couple likes,” said Mr Laine, who added that this was probably the most famous he would ever get..
“And now me deleting the game gets more attention than the game or my music actually ever did. It feels a little counterproductive.”
However, his short-lived fame has yielded at least one tangible benefit — a free donut from his friend.
“He just thought it was so funny he found my name in the news.”
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Featured image adapted from Steam.
