Ironmace VS Nexon, the current lawsuit that the gaming industry is watching, has another chapter in its story; The GoFundMe Saga.
Just recently, on the Ironmace Discord, one of the admins posted a letter to a GoFundMe, explaining how Nexon planned to bleed Ironmace dry in court fees. The admin admitted to posting the letter without consent from the Ironmace higher-ups but is very passionate about the Dark and Darker project. They hoped to get the ball rolling to keep the studio afloat during their legal battles.
The letter reads:
“@everyone Ima be honest with you guys, Terence and sdf aren’t aware that I’m making this post, but I am going to regardless. The least I can do if give you guys the truth of what’s going on. I’ve watched sdf and Terry bust their ass everyday for the past year to create this game for all of us. When we first opened shop, we literally had nothing. Through the cold winter our dev team was working overnight shifts in the office with sleeping bags and no heat simply because this project is not our job, it’s our passion. Having the opportunity to touch the lives of millions of gamers with a game that makes them happy and might help them through a stressful day is our dream, you guys are our motivation and will always be.
We aren’t a big ass studio, and we don’t have an infinite supply of money like Nexon, 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 we fold. Our concern is not the false claims that they have weasled up and fed 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.
So I am coming to you guys to ask for help and support to get us through this bullshit Terence and sdf are stressed the f*** out because we don’t know if we’ll be able to sustain a long term legal battle even with the truth on our side. If we have the funding to defend ourselves in court, we will make it through this and we WILL create the games that the gamers around the world have wanted for such a long time but haven’t had in recent years.
In Nexons most recent copy-paste MMORPG, they literally named the tutorial boss “leader of the Silver Sun – Terence”, to try and mock us and the situation we’re dealing with. They can mock us, but they aren’t going to take Dark and Darker away from you guys.
I’ve set up a gofundme that you guys can donate to here to support us in our battle. Any donation given will be used to fund our legal battle against Nexon and fund our development team to continue working on our game: link to GoFundMe goes here
Thank you to all of our fans and content creators like Moistcritikal that have kept it real through all of this. We will make it through for you guys.
Otto tast treats gang. We love petting Otto. – aho*”
Nexon is claiming that the Dark and Darker game is stolen Nexon IP, and they’ve already sent an authorised police raid to the Ironmace studios, which came up empty. Ironmace is fighting back with evidence proving that they started the game from scratch and have only utilised assets purchased from the Unreal Store, but if they are taken to court over the whole thing, they might not make it to the court’s verdict because of a lack of fees.
The letter to the GoFundMe has since been removed, although another Discord admin has confirmed that the letter and both the GoFundMe are legitimate. Luci, the original and over-passionate admin who posted the letter, took things into his own hands and went above the heads of the other Ironmace devs. The GoFundMe has also been put on “pause”, even though it has already raised around $46,000 of the $500,000 target.
What do you think? Is this a “Big Money” company trying to squash a small, up-and-coming competitor? Or is Dark and Darker stolen IP? Let us know in the comments.