Dark and Darker GoFundMe Saga Leads to Confusion, Scam Warnings From Devs

ign.com:

The legal battle between Dark and Darker developer Ironmace and game publisher Nexon continues to get messier, as confusion surrounding a GoFundMe campaign over the weekend has left fans scratching their heads.

For context, Dark and Darker is an upcoming dungeon-crawling PvPvE game from developer Ironmace. Last month, the company was served a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown, leading to content getting removed from the game's Steam page. The legal issues have put Dark and Darker's upcoming public playtest into question.

Ironmace is in a legal battle with Nexon — the publishing company at which around half of Ironmace's 20-person team previously worked. Nexon is arguing that Ironmace is illegally using Nexon code in Dark and Darker's development. Ironmace's offices were searched by Korean officials on allegations that the company might have stolen code and assets from Nexon, but Ironmace said afterwards that "nothing was found."

Over the weekend, things got even stranger. In the Dark and Darker Discord server, an Ironmace developer known as Luci posted a lengthy announcement about the legal battle. The letter has since been deleted from the server, but a screenshot from PC Gamer and a Reddit post have preserved it.

Luci opened the message by admitting that Ironmace leadership (two specific members known on Discord as Terence and sdf) wasn't aware he was making the post. The developer went on to accuse Nexon of attempting to run Ironmace out of money.

"We aren't a big ass studio, and we don't have an infinite supply of money like Nexon," Luci wrote. "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