The legal battle between Ironmace Games and the publisher Nexon continues. However, the studio has managed to carry out an alpha test by distributing the controversial multiplayer game Dark and Darker via torrent.
After Nexon filed a lawsuit against Dark and Darker developer Ironmace, the studio found another way to distribute the game off steam.
The team made the unusual decision to share a torrent link to the latest alpha build and allow users around the world to test the project.
A torrent that is setting fire among gamers
Over on the game's Discord channel, Ironmace recently announced that 457,181 players participated in the April test.
39.23% of users came from the United Statesfollowed by Japan (7.67%), Canada (4.9%), China (4.22%), Germany (3.7%) and Russia (3.64%).
The studio also shared other statistics, such as data on the most popular character classes, the most played maps, and in-game items.
While the results of this "Alpha torrent" are impressive, it is clear that Ironmace will not be able to legally distribute and sell Dark and Dark unless you solve your problems with Nexon.
Brief timeline of the legal drama surrounding Dark and Darker:
- Two years ago, Ju-Hyun Choi and Terence Seungha Park worked at Nexon on a project codenamed P3. Both signed non-disclosure agreements regarding the game's development and the publisher's intellectual property.
- In total, the P3 team consisted of about 20 developers. According to court documents filed by Nexon, the company spent $834,000 on the project which was in development for 11 months, from August 2020 to July 2021.
- In June 2021, Nexon discovered that Choi was stealing important files., builds, game source code and other data. As a result, he was fired, and Park voluntarily left the company shortly thereafter. Choi and Park founded Ironmace Games with the help of nine other members of the P3 Project.
- together, they began developing his own title called Dark and Darkera PvPvE FPS action game based on some ideas from Nexon's unpublished project.
- Dark and Darker first came out in February 2023, when their demo surpassed 100,000 concurrent players during Steam Next Fest. Players loved the way the game combined classic RPG mechanics with extraction shooter elements.
- However, that same month, the police searched the studio's offices in Seoul. The developers were accused of stealing assets and P3 source code from Nexon.
- As a result, dark and darker was removed from steam For copyright infringement. The game will not return to the Valve store unless the dispute between Nexon and Ironmace is resolved.
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Journalist specialized in technology, entertainment and videogames. Writing about what I'm passionate about (gadgets, games, and movies) allows me to keep my sanity and wake up with a smile on my face when my alarm goes off. PS: this is not true 100% of the time.
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