A member of the “Dark and Darker” team has initiated a fundraising campaign, which was shortly thereafter terminated. However, the call for donations was not authorized. The reasons for the call are said to be the ongoing plagiarism allegations from a competitor and the associated legal costs.
What is Dark and Darker?
- Dark and Darker is developed by the indie studio Ironmace and features a medieval fantasy setting.
- The title is set to appear on Steam and has already offered several playtests on the platform, which thrilled thousands of players.
- In March, Dark and Darker disappeared from Steam.
- Dark and Darker is a dungeon crawler with a PvP focus. You explore a dark castle for loot and fight in teams of three against other players.
- If you die in an ongoing round, you lose your collected loot just like in an EFT-Like. You have access to magic and sorcery, swords and shields, as well as ranged weapons like a crossbow.
A team member starts unauthorized fundraising campaign
What is the fundraising campaign about? A member of the “Dark and Darker” team shared a fundraising campaign via GoFundMe on the official Discord server of the game. GoFundMe is a crowdfunding platform where, for example, companies can raise money for their projects or startups.
As reported by the English magazine PC Gamer, the fundraising campaign raised nearly $46,000 in less than an hour. Then the GoFundMe page was closed again, and the Discord post from the team member was deleted.
On Twitter, there are still screenshots of the GoFundMe and the related Discord post, which has since been deleted. Speculations that one of the developers had been hacked were proven false.
As other members of the “Dark and Darker” team reported in a statement on the Discord server, the GoFundMe was legitimate, but it was not supposed to be started yet. The team member who posted the fundraising campaign is said to be very passionate and “took matters into their own hands.” The fundraising campaign was unauthorized.
“Their end goal is to bleed us dry in court fees”
Why was the GoFundMe created? In a message posted with the fundraising campaign, the team member from Dark and Darker refers to the legal dispute with Nexon and says that Nexon wants to bleed Ironmace dry with legal costs.
We are not a large studio, and we do not have as much money as Nexon. The reality of the situation is that their end goal is to bleed us dry in court fees […]. I have set up a GoFundMe page where you can donate to support us in our fight. Every donation will be used to finance our lawsuit against Nexon […].
A team member of Dark and Darker on Discord
Nexon is in a legal dispute with Ironmace, the studio behind Dark and Darker. The South Korean developer and publisher accuses the indie studio of copyright infringement (via Discord).
An Ironmace employee, who previously worked for Nexon, is said to have copied and stolen copyrighted information from Nexon and developed Dark and Darker based on that.
