The December 2020-announced Myth of Empires got delisted over a DMCA claim from Ark: Survival Evolved developer Studio Wildcard, but developer Angela Game is saying the claim is fraudulent.
While Myth of Empires got delisted over a DMCA claim from the Ark developer, the game just recently launched for PC on November 18th, via Steam Early Access. Studio Wildcard are claiming (via PC Gamer) in the submitted DMCA claim documents that Myth of Empires somehow repurposed the Ark: Survival Evolved source code in their game.
The takedown request states Angela Game was founded in 2020 by at least one former employee of Snail Games China, the parent company of Studio Wildcard – who at one point had access to the Ark source code. Studio Wildcard note when Myth of Empires was released this year, they were “understandably concerned” because of the sameness between the games as the gameplay seemed identical at first.
Going off this hunch, Studio Wildcard compared the code headers between both Myth of Empires and Ark: Survival Evolved, and claim to have found “hundreds” of matching lines of code in their initial analysis. From this Studio Wildcard claim that the Ark source code was unequivocally used in Myth of Empires.
A roundup of their discovery and analysis was sent to Valve on December 1st, who then responded by removing Myth of Empires on December 3rd. Despite the game being pulled, it remains playable and is still popular, with tens of thousands of players regularly playing. Valve has called for hosting services to stop running the game’s services.
“Studio Wildcard and Snail Games USA Inc have a good faith belief that Myth of Empires was built by: (1) stealing the Ark: Survival Evolved source code and (2) using the stolen source code as the gameplay foundation for Myth of Empires,” reads a statement from the complaint. “Key employees of the developer of Myth of Empires worked at the Chinese parent of Snail Games USA Inc and at least one of them had the credentials that enabled them to access the Ark: Survival Evolved source code.”
In response to the takedown, Angela Game has wholeheartedly denied the allegations and the nature of the takedown, but refuse to name who is the claimant.
“Our development team solemnly declares: Angela Game fully owns all rights and property associated with Myth of Empires and will actively respond to any doubts or allegations on this point,” Angela Game said in their statement. “We are in active contact with Steam and are doing our best to restore the game to their store. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused players.”
Even with further pressure to elaborate on who the claimant actually is, Angela Game posted another statement saying they are still “unable to disclose more details” but they are “frustrated with this situation as well.”
They added, “We still have faith that we will be able to resolve this situation in a timely manner and make the game available to everyone again.”
We’ll keep you guys posted as the situation between Angela Game and Studio Wildcard develops.
