The two companies behind the dino mega hit ARK Survival Evolved have filed a counterclaim against Angela Games, the creators of “Myth of Empire”. The survival game was a hit on Steam for a few days until it was removed from the platform due to plagiarism allegations. ARK has made serious accusations against the studio and the Chinese giant Tencent.
This is the situation:
- In November, the survival MMO “Myth of Empire” was released on Steam. The game was described as a mix of “survival MMO” and “Mount & Blade” – Myth of Empire had approximately 36,600 users on its first day and was primarily recommended to fans of ARK: Survival Evolved and Rust.
- However, less than 2 weeks later, the game disappeared from Steam. Later it became clear: The developers of ARK Survival Evolved had raised “allegations” that the game violated their copyrights, which is why Steam removed the game from the store following the “DMCA takedown” to investigate the situation.
- The developers of Myth of Empire state that they hold all rights to the game. There is no doubt about that, and they intend to clarify this with Steam. ARK, on the other hand, says it is convinced the developers stole the source code of ARK Survival Evolved.
Myth of Empire aims to return to Steam via court – Fails
This is how it continued: Until then, everything was proceeding without lawyers and was directed only in a copyright complaint to Steam.
But the company behind “Myth of Empire” petitioned a court in California in mid-December, seeking a “temporary injunction” to allow the purchase of “Myth of Empire” again.
The request for a temporary injunction was initially denied because Snail Games presented a “large amount of evidence,” as the court ruled.
Creators of ARK Survival Evolved seek damages and profits
This is the latest development: In response to this petition, the companies behind ARK Survival Evolved have now filed a lawsuit against Myth of Empire.
It states:
- Since the copyright complaint, Angela Games has been working to erase any evidence that the code was stolen.
- Of the 82 employees at Angela Games, 60 are former employees of Snail Games (China); many of them quit in 2019 and 2020 to work at Angela Games.
- One employee was responsible at Snail Games for storing the source code on a backup server in China, and is now also working for Angela Games.
The proceedings are detailed in a 39-page complaint: An employee obtained access to the source code in November 2018, copied the game from China to a US server, left the company in March 2019, and then started at Angela Games – after which Angela Games began to develop the game.
In their rush to profit from the “theft,” the developers left non-functional elements in the code. There is no explanation for why these “relics” are in the code – unless it was indeed stolen, it states.
What does ARK demand? They demand damages and want to receive the profits generated by the sale of “Myth of Empire.” Furthermore, the alleged code thieves should surrender all devices containing unauthorized code.
What does Tencent have to do with it? The creators of ARK accuse Tencent of being involved, having an interest in Angela Games. Tencent is further accused of allowing the game to run on their servers and not adhering to the copyright complaint which would require taking the servers down.
ARK itself had a difficult history with lawsuits
This is the juicy part of the case: Some veterans may remember that ARK Survival Evolved was also created under difficult circumstances. The chief programmer and mastermind of the game, Jeremy Stieglitz, was under a clause that prohibited him from working on the game while he was designing ARK, as he had previously worked on another MMORPG.
The developer therefore appeared anonymously, sending his wife, a bakery assistant, and his former study buddy in front.
ARK also faced allegations in 2016, claiming that they did not actually design the dino game themselves, but that employees from Trendy Games, Stieglitz’s former company, did.
This ended with a reportedly very expensive out-of-court settlement, about which there was largely silence. Because the matter apparently became so costly and money was needed, the developers later seemingly engaged Snail Games, a Chinese company, and developed also authorized “clones” of their game for the international market. These include “Dark & Light” and a free-to-play version of ARK for Asia.
Neither situation is entirely comparable, but it is indeed intriguing that ARK is now facing these problems – and the issues apparently originated at Snail Games (China). So it seems ARK is somewhat catching up with its own past, since it likely would not have been involved with Snail Games without its own scandal:
ARK Survival Evolved: The gaming scandal that nobody talks about
