The legal battle between publishing giant Nexon and a small group of former Ironmace employees who retired to make their own games is getting uglier.Nexon claims (opens in new tab) Ironmace’s Dark and Darker illegal use of code and concepts from its own canceled “P3” project has so far led to a police raid on Ironmace’s South Korean studio. (opens in new tab) And Dark and Darker’s Steam page has officially been removed.
Iron Mace disputes this claim by releasing its own evidence this week. (opens in new tab) Dark and Darker was developed from scratch and utilized assets purchased from the Unreal library. Whether or not Nexon files a lawsuit against Iron Mace, it is unlikely that a verdict will be reached before the costly, months-long legal process.
Today, Dark and Darker Discord’s Ironmace administrator named Luci deliberately did not consult Ironmace’s leadership to avoid stressful legal battles and the financial hardships of large companies outlasting their smaller competitors. published an open letter detailing what they believed was an attempt to
The post contained a link to a GoFundMe page, apparently intended to raise money for legal fees and allow Ironmace to continue developing Dark and Darker. increase. As of this writing, the letter has been deleted again and so has the GoFundMe page. The page was published in less than an hour of his time and has raised over $46,000.
“We’re not a big studio, and we’re not infinitely funded like Nexon,” Rusi wrote. “The reality of the situation is that their ultimate goal is to drain us out of court costs. Internally, we know this, they know this, lawyers know this. I know.”
Minutes after the letter was reposted, a lower-level moderator named Mellie-Mellow urged fans not to donate to GoFundMe because he was unable to confirm whether the letter was legal.
Moderators closed general and off-topic chat channels on the server until things were sorted out. About two hours after the incident began, an Ironmace administrator named Graysun Confirmed (opens in new tab) The open letter and now-deleted GoFundMe page are legitimate, but were published “without approval because a dedicated member of the team took matters into their own hands.”
“We are currently pausing the campaign due to the premature announcement,” Graysun wrote. We apologize for inviting you and we will take appropriate steps to resolve this in the next few hours.We will make a separate announcement as to how the GoFundMe will be handled.”
Before the campaign was paused, the goal was set at $500,000. You can read the deleted open letter from admin Luci below.
