IRONMACE responds to reported Dark and Darker lawsuit, accusations of IP theft

Dark and Darker was a surprise hit over the Christmas holiday last year when developer IRONMACE had its first successful playtest. Many were eager to get back into the game ahead of the second alpha, which ran from Feb. 13 to 16 and ended up attracting over two million players, according to the developer. However, the developer appears to be in trouble as it faces a lawsuit over the alleged theft of ideas.

Recent reporting from Korean-based gaming site ThisIsGame states that Nexon, the developer behind games like KartRider: Drift and MapleStory 2, is alleging that IRONMACE stole its concept for a game. In a translated post on Reddit, it’s stated that some of IRONMACE’s developers allegedly once worked for Nexon, and the developer claims they stole Dark and Darker‘s concept from a project called “P3.”

According to the original reporting, Nexon announced Project P3 at a media showcase where the game was planned to be a shared experience that allowed players to explore a fantasy dungeon. Apparently, this game was also supposed to feature PvE and PvP, plus the mention of some kind of farming mechanic.

The article states that a number of the core developers for P3 were similar to those now working on Dark and Darker. According to ThisIsGame, these developers allegedly created Dark and Darker after leaving Nexon with the help of the company’s assets and codes. As the outlet points out, this would be a violation of trade secret laws and likely non-compete agreements signed while at the developer.

IRONMACE CEO Park Terence Seung-ha, who goes by Terence in Discord, posted a lengthy message in the Dark and Darker channel addressing the claims made by Nexon. In the response, he simply stated that “[o]ur code was built from scratch,” and claimed that many assets were bought from Unreal or created in-house, with a previous auditing agency allegedly already confirming this.

According to Terence, IRONMACE doesn’t view this as a company lawsuit, saying “we consider it a separate personal matter claimed on one of our team members. No lawsuit has been filed against Ironmace.”

Terence stated that there is no lawsuit at the time of his message earlier today and that IRONMACE has reached out through back channels to try and contact those responsible for the rumor. According to him, this has something to do with a “disgruntled 3rd party.” The developer stated that “[w]e are ready to defend if necessary but we prefer to focus our energy on bettering our craft.”

There’s no mention of this delaying anything, as he also commented that IRONMACE “have a lot of work ahead of us for the next playtest and we’ll let our work do the talking.”