An AI-powered driving game known as Teach My Little Sister How To Drive has forced its developers to take out loans after its popular demo is pushing the four-person studio towards financial ruin. 

Released on Steam, the game, which uses generative AI to create real-time conversations with the in-game little sister as you teach them how to drive, has become incredibly popular with players and streamers in Japan and other Asian regions. 

While the game was originally released in February 2026, the PC game’s player count has increased by more than 20 times within the last month. As the game’s AI usage is not a local calculation but instead one using an online service including Google Gemini and ChatGPT, those player counts have resulted in an exorbitant cost for the developers. 

Teach My Little Sister How To Drive makes use of generative AI constantly. As the player has to constantly tell the virtual sister how to drive, and the AI model frequently misunderstands or disobeys, the game is always generating something. 

In a statement to fans, the developers behind the project announced that they have been forced to take out loans to keep the company afloat. Since the game hit its peak player count, the studio has spent over $1000 a day on AI tokens for players, and the game’s free state means that the studio is in a large financial hole. 

At the time of writing, the team has not removed the free demo from Steam. However, the team is actively weighing up whether or not they should pull the game until they can figure out what to do next. 

The developers announced that they are looking at two ways to keep the game afloat. The first would involve introducing a local AI model to handle the in-game conversations, either entirely or as a secondary tool, which would obviously eliminate the cost issue. The second option would be to introduce a pricing model that would account for AI usage. 

“For the paid release, we plan to account for expected AI usage in the game’s price. Players will not be charged separately for their individual AI token usage after purchasing the game,” the developers said. “This isn’t because each player is particularly expensive to support. The total cost has increased because so many people are playing, and we have taken out a bank loan to help keep the demo running.”

“We want to continue operating the demo and would love for more people to enjoy it. However, we are a small team of four, and financial pressure may mean we have to close the demo earlier than expected before the full release. We have not made that decision at this time.”

Honestly, even as someone who is very anti-AI in its current unregulated form, it seems pretty silly to release a free game based around the usage of paid AI services. While the game may not have been released with the expectation of 62,874 peak concurrent players, you should probably account for that possibility if you’re going to be releasing a game that uses a paid service as its foundational technology.