I came across this news after watching a Virtual Insider video with the clickbait title This VR Game No Longer Exists. The news did come out about a month ago though but I haven’t seen it posted on Lemmy yet. A 47 second trailer for the game can be found here. In it you can see some elements that do exist in the Metro series such as a lighter being used for a light source, a watch timer, gas mask mechanics, lighting being a consideration for combat, and a scene where enemies chase you while you travel on a rail cart.

I feel like the game looked great and had a lot of potential.

Part of why I found this interesting is the writer of the three Metro novels, Dmitry Glukhovsky, has supported over 90 different novels taking place in the Metro universe from various authors. Even though the video game is likely a different situation compared to the novels this whole ordeal seemed out of place to me.

The text in the Discord screenshot is as followed:

@everyone Very important bad news

What happened?

Unfortunately, today I have some bad news. Recently, “Paradox of Hope” has been accused of copyright infringement. In the game “Paradox of Hope,” no names, characters, events, assets, or code from any other game are used, and its lore and story are original. The setting, idea, or gameplay mechanics cannot be protected by copyright.

Therefore, I sincerely believe that “Paradox of Hope” does not violate anyone’s copyright and only uses similar imagery and analogous elements inherent to the genre of Soviet post-apocalyptic shooters.

However, unfortunately, the one with more money has the upper hand in legal matters. I simply cannot afford to take this into the realm of legal proceedings. Consequently, the further development of PoH is halted, and the game will no longer be available for purchase.

This is a very difficult day for me. They have taken away not only my sole source of income, but also my beloved creation into which I poured my soul and heart over the last four years. But most of all, I am sorry that I have let you down, all those who supported me in the early stages of development. Please forgive me, my friends. I have no words to express how sorry I What happens next?

As far as I know, those who already own the game will be able to continue playing it. It will remain in your Steam library. All the recent changes I made in the past few days in an attempt to save the game have been rolled back.

I intend to take all the accumulated experience from working on PoH and release a new game in the same genre, but without using the Moscow metro setting. I will also likely seek the support of a major publisher this time around to ensure avoiding copyright issues.

In this Discord, I will share the very first news about the new game and will conduct closed testing. I will try my best to ensure that everyone who purchased PoH will have access to testing and also receive the new game for free upon release. Once again, I offer my deepest apologies for this situation and hope that you will stay here and follow the updates.

  • @[email protected]English
    25•9 months ago

    Bit fishy. Subway surfer is copy of temple rush. Angry birds a copy of crush the castle. All the breakout clones? If his game violate copyright then those games too.

    • CorrodedOPEnglish
      15•9 months ago

      I am wondering if the game advertised itself in anyway as inspired by the Metro series. I could see that causing potential issues but you are right. It does rapidly cascade if you take that approach.

      The quote below is from an article with the author of the series and (TL:DR) they admit that they were inspired by the Fallout and Roadside Picnic.

      I know Metro is a product of your environment, but I read earlier that you were inspired by the Fallout games…

      Very much so by the first Fallout games. One of the sources of inspiration was Fallout 1 and 2, the isometric RPGs. And I was so inspired by Fallout when I was a student that once I went to cook my pasta and I was in such a hurry to get back to my desktop that I poured boiling spaghetti over my knees and luckily enough it was just inches away the most valuable thing that I have. That’s just to explain the extent of my passion for Fallout 2 back at the time. Also, not just that of course, but the books by the famous Soviet science fiction authors the Strugatsky brothers who wrote Roadside Picnic (Пикник на обочине), later adapted as Stalker and another work of theirs called The Doomed City (Град обреченный) which also has this incredible romanticism of abandoned urban spaces where you become the new master and you can explore the empty streets and empty buildings and everyone’s gone and you roam through empty apartments full of the belongings of other people. So this is something very romantic and very dreamy that can also be accounted for as an inspiration. And there’s some movies of course. There’s a very famous Soviet movie called The Letters of a Dead Man (Письма мёртвого человека), also about the post apocalypse. Altogether, that’s shaping your art references that inspire you. Then you build up on that and you become the inspiration for someone else and that’s how creative things work.

      The Fallout games themselves were inspired by a multitude of works such as Mad Max, On the Beach, and A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World. There’s a PDF file out there that I believe was used during some kind of conference/convention talking in depth about this that I am struggling to find. It’s continued to do so throughout the series. I find this is most noticeable throughout Fallout New Vegas with many quest names and a chunk of dialogue referencing the material.

      Kind of unrelated but interesting if you ever want to go down a rabbit hole you should check out how inspirational the book I Am Legend Is. It inspired The Omega Man and The Last Man on Earth and was incredibly significant in the creation of the zombie media going on to be the inspiration for Night of Living Dead.

      • @[email protected]English
        5•9 months ago

        While you comment and the books recommendation are very interesting, it still doesn’t explain why he had a copyright strike. By whom even ? The copyright infringement notice would certainly explain what he did wrong. I don’t think it’s gameplay related because if gameplay mechanics were copyrightable EA would’ve done that years ago. If it’s story, name related it wouldn’t be the first time someone is forced to change them because copyright. Unless, he provided some more explanations i would think he just got tired of working on the game and wanted an exit.

        • CorrodedOPEnglish
          3•9 months ago

          I think he was intentionally pretty vague about that. Maybe out of fear of landing in hot water. I believe Deep Silver Embracer Group owns the rights to the Metro video games and it might be one of those fuzzy situations where they are (somewhat) overstepping what they can legally do because a small project can’t afford to fight back and they are striking down something that could potentially be competition for something they might attempt in the future. A similar example of the latter being Take-Two Interactive taking down a GTA 5 VR mod or the source port for GTA 3/VC for devices such as the Switch and PS Vita.

          I don’t think they wanted an exit because the game was slowly gathering attention online in the year leading up to this. I think it’s mentioned in a few articles it was their primary source of income and I don’t know if they have any other projects on the go. I imagine by now Paradox of Hope’s discussion page would have been updated if they did.

          • @[email protected]English
            1•9 months ago

            The fear of landing in hot water argument is very probable although i never heard someone got in troubles for saying who gave the DMCA. For the GTA 5 VR and GTA VC ports, it’s understandable since it’s using copyrighted material. This is a new game that was inspired by older games, the takedown sets a dangerous precedent. Imagine if every silent hill inspired game was sent a DMCA…

            • CorrodedOPEnglish
              3•9 months ago

              For the GTA 5 VR and GTA VC ports, it’s understandable since it’s using copyrighted material.

              The GTA 3/VC port wasn’t using copyrighted material though. You still need to own a copy of the game and bring over your own data files. It’s similar to how OpenMW allows you to play TES 3: Morrowind on your phone. Nothing was being distributed on their end.

              The GTA 5 VR mod was filed under a copyright not licensing claim so it doesn’t seem like it was about the creators making money. Likewise you still need to own a copy of the game. There are conversion tools that target a multitude of games with the goal of converting them into a VR experience that don’t, to my knowledge, receive legal threats. It’s just that this project targeted Take Two Interactive games (it also worked for Red Dead 2).

              This is a new game that was inspired by older games, the takedown sets a dangerous precedent. Imagine if every silent hill inspired game was sent a DMCA…

              I agree. I feel like a significant amount of the games I’ve played recently are very upfront about being inspired by Resident Evil, Wasteland, or the STALKER series. I hope it doesn’t become an annoying hurdle for indie developers.

              • @[email protected]English
                2•9 months ago

                If it was just an engine then the GTA 3 “port” is i believe legal. Just another company abusing it’s power.

                As for GTA 5 VR, I know they can’t make any money of their work or they’d have something worse than a just a mere DMCA ( Nintendo made someone pay it half his income for life ) but I know the most devs are mostly doing it for the challenge and more importantly out of love for the game. As an exemple, here’s someone porting portal to the N64

                • CorrodedOPEnglish
                  2•9 months ago

                  As for GTA 5 VR, I know they can’t make any money of their work or they’d have something worse than a just a mere DMCA ( Nintendo made someone pay it half his income for life ) but I know the most devs are mostly doing it for the challenge and more importantly out of love for the game. As an exemple, here’s someone porting portal to the N64

                  I think it’s the wording they used. A DMCA is one thing but skirting around a license is another thing and that’s not what Take Two went after.

                  I think it really depends on the company and what they think they can get away with in the fine print of the terms and conditions. It might be Nintendo as well who I believe at a time was going after game play videos.

                  I wonder if there is a court case in the US that talks about game modding in a similar way to the one that legitimized console modding?

  • @[email protected]English
    18•9 months ago

    That’s kind of stupid, Moscow metro station IS an anti-bomb shelter designed to surviv an atomic blast, anyone who’s visited knows this, they can’t copyright something that is real, is like if someone made a game setup in New York and the makers of Spider-Man sued them.

    • @[email protected]English
      7•9 months ago

      I’ll estimate that the PoH guy would win if it went to trial, but he doesn’t have the money to actually defend himself.

      • AlexisFREnglish
        4•9 months ago

        If it’s slam dunk, lots of lawyers will accept commission for such a job.

        Now, wether they can afford the time off is another matter.

        • CorrodedOPEnglish
          1•9 months ago

          I intend to take all the accumulated experience from working on PoH and release a new game in the same genre, but without using the Moscow metro setting. I will also likely seek the support of a major publisher this time around to ensure avoiding copyright issues.

          Maybe the publisher would be able to help them with that and encourage them to keep the Russian metro setting?

    • CorrodedOPEnglish
      4•9 months ago

      Yeah. With how copyright claim happy companies like Take Two Interactive are I could see them doing that to any game set in your New York that had a slightly brown hue. Would be a funny trend though if publishers started going to court over the piss and shit filter that games of the mid 2000s had like Fallout 3, GTA 4, and Resident Evil 5.

      The premise is pretty absurd though. Just because your game was popular in the west means you now own the Soviet aesthetic. Never mind the dozens of other titles that have done it but haven’t seen widespread acclaim.

      • @[email protected]English
        4•9 months ago

        A quick google revealed nothing, and looking at some in game footage those look like generic monsters, but so do the metro ones so they might be copies, but I can definitely find games older than metro with similar monsters for sure.

  • @[email protected]English
    18•9 months ago

    The one with more money has the upper hand.

    That sums up so many problems with the legal system. I suppose the completed form would be “The one with more money has the upper hand, also racism”.