'A big scam company just stole my whole game': A Backrooms indie dev has been forced to seek legal help after someone took their game off Steam and uploaded it to the Nintendo Store
Backrooms games have quickly become a staple of the horror genre. If you check on Steam, there are hundreds to choose from, which, despite looking similar thanks to their setting, can be different in a couple of minor ways. However, there are at least two Backrooms games that are pretty much identical
Steelkrill's game, The Backrooms 1998, was released last week and has had a pretty good reception with a 'Very Positive' review rating on Steam. The game takes a more narrative approach to the Backrooms as it follows a young teen who has fallen into the liminal space. It also uses a camcorder to add a lost-footage vibe to the already creepy atmosphere.
After the successful initial launch on Steam, the solo dev Steelkrill decided that now was a great time to branch out to other consoles. Everything was going according to plan until one player contacted Steelkrill to ask why their game was already on consoles but under a different name. Steelkrill went to check it out, and that's how they found out that someone had ripped their entire game.
«A big scam company just stole my whole game from Steam, ripped it, and sold it as their own on Playstation and other consoles,» Steelkrill says. «They stole the whole game as it is alongside the music, sounds, voice lines and everything else. They only changed the monster and the picture on the frame, lol.»
Steelkrill even linked a walkthrough of their game alongside the supposed copycat from Cool Devs, so players could decide for themselves how similar the games were. Although the copycat trailer has now been taken down, there's still a ton of pictures that show a side by side comparison, and they look pretty damning. The copycat has seemingly ripped at least sections of the game; the only difference is that they are slightly brighter.
Steelkrill has already submitted a DMCA and is working alongside their publisher and lawyer and is now trying to figure out the next step: «For now, the game is taken down from PlayStation and Xbox,
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