PC Game Accused Of ‘Asset Theft’ Removed From Steam

The controversy surrounding Dark and Darker, an MMO that stands accused of thieving not just property but also workers from Korean publishers Nexon, escalated around the weekend when the recreation was delisted from Steam.

As we have documented beforehand, Darkish and Darker—a fantasy MMO that was supposed to go into Early Access in April—is currently being developed by Ironmace, a crew of mainly previous-Nexon workforce, and is in the similar style as P3, a title several of them had been functioning on at Nexon (and which has because been cancelled) just before leaping ship.

As a consequence, a handful of months back Nexon complained and police raided Ironmace’s business office:

Nexon’s attorneys say Dark and Darker has “striking similarities with the idea for P3 in big gameplay, regulations and arts, which could not have been created independently”, and that as a result of the alleged theft their personal recreation “couldn’t see the gentle of working day because of to unethical steps from former colleagues”.

Next this raid, Nexon filed a DMCA strike towards Darkish and Darker, resulting in the video game getting delisted from Steam. The ask for, created public listed here, states:

Nexon has uncovered that IRONMACE Co., Ltd. (“Ironmace”) is generating unauthorized use of Nexon’s trade secrets and techniques and copyrighted materials as detailed beneath. This letter is to tell you of Ironmace’s misconduct, constituting misappropriation of Nexon’s trade insider secrets and copyright infringement and to request that Valve acquire down all variations of Dark and Darker from Steam.

In response to the delisting, Ironmace issued a statement on the game’s Discord, expressing:

To all our enthusiasts, we have recently been served a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown by Nexon relating to Dim and Darker based mostly on distorted claims. We are presently functioning with our lawful workforce to treatment this problem in the finest method achievable. Because of to the delicate authorized mother nature of this challenge we will have to be cautious with our statements so as to not jeopardize our posture. We talk to for your knowledge as we perform to get the recreation again up as speedily as possible. You should know that we will do all that is probable for our supporters. Many thanks!

That was followed by a longer explanation, which addresses Nexon’s certain allegations (these kinds of as the accessing of Nexon’s servers by developers doing the job from household and the similarities of Darkish and Darker’s tale to that of P3), and which finishes with:

Provided the information offered, it is tricky to consider that Nexon, in fantastic religion, could moderately think that Ironmace has infringed on the copyrights for their P3 challenge. They also give no true evidence that Ironmace misappropriated Nexon’s trade mystery data in the creation of Dark and Darker, but alternatively foundation it on circumstantial statements. Eventually, they accuse Ironmace of a flagrant breach of Valve’s SSA and SOCR, limiting our means to supply our game to gamers on the premier mainstream Computer system game system and seriously obstructing our ability to do business. Ironmace requests that Nexon renounce their baseless promises. If they would like to contend on advantage, we welcome Nexon to immediately accommodate the comparison of supply code, customized property, and design files with the police to speedily and decisively place an finish to this subject.