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.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe the publisher would be able to help them with that and encourage them to keep the Russian metro setting?
The copied the monsters and many other aspects. Lots of screen shots floating around.
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.
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.