- Fukio Mitsuji (MTJ), designer of classic games like Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands, wrote a 1989 column warning about imitation games.
- He imagined a machine called the 'Rip-O-Bot' that could generate copycat games from a prompt, predicting an era where derivative work is automated.
- MTJ argued that the only lasting value for game designers is original ideas, as imitation can be done by robots.
- He compared the potential of a game-world 'Osamu Tezuka' to the need for human-driven creative originality.
- The column inspired the creation of Jinks, a tool focusing on novel ideas over boilerplate code, echoing MTJ's emphasis on ideas as the final weapon.