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Nexon are suing Dark And Darker developers over copyright infringementDark And Darker was pulled from Steam last month
Dark And Darker was pulled from Steam last month
Dark and Darker - Alpha Playtest TeaserWatch on YouTube
Dark and Darker - Alpha Playtest Teaser
It’s a messy situation, but the dispute ramped up last month whenDark And Darker was pulled from Steamfollowing accusations of stolen trade secrets. Essentially, Ironmace’s founder (Terence Park) and a developer (Ju-Hyun Choi) were both former Nexon devs who worked on a similar fantasy game codenamed P3 in 2020-2021. Nexon accused Choi of stealing assets while still working at the company and claimed that Dark And Darker was built with these stolen materials. Their DMCA letter led to the game’s Steam removal, and Ironmace quickly responded on their Discord server, calling the claims “distorted.”
YouTuber Onepeg - who has been actively following the extraction looter - paid for the lawsuit’s documents and uploaded a30-minute videodelving into the text. Nexon’slegal complaintis against Ironmace, Park, and Choi, otherwise known as the “defendants” throughout the document.
Nexon once again claims that the “defendants stole P3 source code, audiovisual, and other materials that Nexon developed,” and allegedly used these materials to develop the “substantially similar” Dark And Darker. Now Nexon are seeking monetary compensation for the costs that went into P3’s development, but they’re also attempting to halt the development and distribution of Ironmace’s game.
Nexon also states that their Employment Agreement includes a “one-year non-compete clause that prevents the employees from working in the same line of business that could potentially infringe on Nexon’s trade secrets, without Nexon’s prior consent.” Ironmace haven’t responded to the lawsuit yet.
Since its removal from Steam, the studio has continued development as Dark And Darker’s fifth public playtest was released, unconventionally,through a torrent link. Its previous playtests found popularity on Steam and Twitch -Alice0 played one of those playtestsin December and found it to be an interesting take on Escape From Tarkov’s extraction-based PvPvE.
