Ironmace Games lawyer accuses Nexon of "anti-competitive bully tactics" over Dark and Darker

Dark and Darker developer Ironmace Games' lawyers have sent a letter to Valve regarding the game being delisted on Steam.

The entire road of Dark and Darker's journey since the beginning of the year has been quite the bumpy one. Following a very successful playtest in February, developer Ironmace has been subject to a police raid, Dark and Darker being pulled from Steam, and a lawsuit from Nexon. Now, as reported by GamesRadar, Ironmace's lawyers have responded to the accusations from Nexon, having written a letter to Valve disputing the DMCA notice that removed the game from Steam.

"The Takedown Notice is based on claims that are entirely without merit and contains knowing and material misrepresentations that Dark and Darker infringed Nexon’s copyright interests," writes Greeberg Glusker lawyer Aaron Moss on behalf of Ironmace. Moss went on to say that Nexon's claims are "nothing more than anti-competitive bully tactics designed to put a small indie game studio out of business."

Moss' letter highlights that Naxon is claiming a "game that Nexon never made and which does not exist," noting that the massive publisher "claims to have created 'unique concepts, genre, plot, story line, characters, and plans for the game' - almost none of which is subject to copyright protection. While the actual expression of plot, story line, and characters certainly may be protectable, copyright doesn’t protect concepts."

The concepts in question relate to a game project known as P3, which Nexon have pointed similarities seen in concept art for both that unreleased game, and Dark and Darker. However, Moss makes the argument that aside from the similarities of typical fantasy designs like wizards and barbarians, the comparisons don't go beyond that.

Moss also addressed the claims of stolen assets, writing, "what appears in Dark and Darker consists primarily of third-party assets legally acquired from the Unreal Engine asset store. To the extent that Nexon used the same or similar assets, that does not give rise to a copyright claim."

This letter is specifically addressed to Valve, so is more about getting the game back on Steam (presumably so Ironmace doesn't have to ask its player base to torrent the game), so it remains to be seen how the lawsuit will pan out.