The city-building simulation “Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic” has suddenly disappeared from Steam four years after its release. The developers have fallen out with a fan who is now doing everything to take revenge on the development team. The amazing thing: He is successful. Apparently, he is a lawyer, and the developers are having trouble defending themselves against him and his copyright strikes.
What kind of game is this?
- The strategy game is a total niche game: It simulates city planning in Eastern Europe during the time of planned economy and communism. The developers like to refer to themselves as “The Party” or “The Republic” – their players are of course “Comrades”.
- The game has been playable on Steam since March 2019. It comes from the developer and publisher 3Division.
- It costs about 15.39 €. At its peak, the game had 3,891 players.
You can watch the trailer with a lot of communist flair here:
“We have the 1st enemy of the Soviet Republic”
This is what the developers say: In a post on Steam, the developers explain that their game was removed from Steam due to a copyright complaint, and it cannot be purchased through Steam at the moment (via steamcommunity):
- A fan of the game, who wrote a guide to the “Cosmonaut Mode,” claims to hold the rights to the “Realistic Mode”.
- The developers refer to the player as “the first enemy of the Soviet Republic” and say he was once a respected member of the community and “the party,” but has now decided to betray the Republic, the party, and its ideas.
Dispute over whose name appears in the credits
What is the conflict? The developers have begun work on the “Realistic Mode,” which the fan claims rights to. He apparently insisted on being named in the credits of the game.
The developers have indicated they would include him and other players who created guides and were particularly helpful in the credits – but only after they finish the game.
The developers say: Subsequently, the player became aggressive, hired a lawyer, and began to exploit the DMCA system on YouTube to bombard an important influencer of the game with copyright strikes.
The conflict escalated, and the developers excluded the “enemy of the Republic,” also changing the name of a challenge that the player had “invented”:
Because he chose to use extortion and abuse, we became angry at him and decided to never mention the name of the challenge he supposedly invented again and ignore him.
Player is apparently a lawyer, seeks conflict with developers
So the situation escalated further: The player escalated, reported the developers’ website, took down a video, and ultimately had the game removed from Steam.
As developer Peter Adamcik told the US site Kotaku, the situation is “very disturbing” for them.
The user apparently has knowledge of the legal system and believes he can enforce his alleged rights this way. He abuses his role as a lawyer because he thinks he can handle a trial cheaper than the developers:
“He thinks he can get anything he wants from us because we won’t get into an expensive lawsuit. But legally, he has no ground to stand on, so we will probably fight to the end.”
The developer believes the fan is taking a high risk; his reputation and finances could suffer, and what he is doing is also not ethically right.
A slight threat is implied when the developer says: If the game remains banned from Steam, there will be significant financial damage to the team and to Valve.
The developer also says: Another very sad aspect of the case is that the “DMCA” system simply does not work. Anyone can claim anything for themselves, and the service provider is forced to remove the content.
