The legal battle between Dark and Darker developer Ironmace and game publisher Nexon continues to get messier, as confusion surrounding a GoFundMe campaign over the weekend has left fans scratching their heads.
For context, Dark and Darker is an upcoming dungeon-crawling PvPvE game from developer Ironmace. Last month, the company was served a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown, leading to content getting removed from the game’s Steam page. The legal issues have put Dark and Darker’s upcoming public playtest into question.
Ironmace is in a legal battle with Nexon — the publishing company at which around half of Ironmace’s 20-person team previously worked. Nexon is arguing that Ironmace is illegally using Nexon code in Dark and Darker’s development. Ironmace’s offices were searched by Korean officials on allegations that the company might have stolen code and assets from Nexon, but Ironmace said afterwards that “nothing was found.”
Ironmace Employee posts a GoFundMe for legal fees
Over the weekend, things got even stranger. In the Dark and Darker Discord server, an Ironmace developer known as Luci posted a lengthy announcement about the legal battle. The letter has since been deleted from the server, but a screenshot from PC Gamer and a Reddit post have preserved it.
Luci opened the message by admitting that Ironmace leadership (two specific members known on Discord as Terence and sdf) wasn’t aware he was making the post. The developer went on to accuse Nexon of attempting to run Ironmace out of money.
“We aren’t a big ass studio, and we don’t have an infinite supply of money like Nexon,” Luci wrote. “The reality of the situation is that their end goal is to bleed us dry in court fees. Internally, we know this, they know this, the lawyers know this. They have no real case that will hold up in court but they pray that we fold. Our concern is not the false claims that they have weasled up and fed to every media outlet. Our game was made from scratch. But we are concerned about being able to support ourselves through this legal battle that they want to drag us through.”
The message goes on to ask members of the Dark and Darker Discord to help Ironmace “through this bulls**t”, saying that they set up a GoFundMe for fans to donate their money toward Ironmace’s legal fees. According to PC Gamer, the GoFundMe raised over $46,000 in less than an hour before it was taken down.
After questions surrounding the GoFundMe’s legitimacy caused Ironmace to pause the campaign, another Discord announcement came down saying that Luci’s account could be compromised, and fans shouldn’t donate any money without confirmation from either Terence or sdf. Later on Friday, members of the Dark and Darker Discord were still unsure if the initial GoFundMe page was actually posted by Ironmace employee Luci, or if the account had been compromised.
Finally, a post in the Community Announcements channel shed some light on the Dark and Darker GoFundMe, and it turns out the initial post from Luci was legitimate. Ironmace admin Graysun posted an announcement that revealed the company had been working on a GoFundMe, but Luci seemingly took matters into his own hands and posted it early without approval.
“The GoFundMe link is legitimate, however it was to be used later if necessary,” Graysun wrote. “It was posted this morning without approval due to a passionate member of the team taking matters into his own hands. We have currently paused the campaign for now as it was prematurely announced… We will make another announcement on how the GoFundMe will be handled.”
Yesterday, sdf cleared things up further, reiterating that the “previous fundraising was legitimate just not at the time we planned”.
“Other than officially me or Terry asking you for help, all requests for donations to IRONMACE are SCAMS,” sdf wrote. “Beware of scams that exist online, and never donate. Our official fundraiser page is currently paused until further notice so any public donation pages should be taken as a scam. Terry or I will announce when our official donation page is live. We are very sorry for the confusion caused by our mistake.”
The campaign’s goal was set at $500,000 before it was halted.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
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