Studio Wildcard CEO Opens Up on Unique Myth of Empires Resolution, Is Interested in Publishing More Games

wccftech.com:

Studio Wildcard, known to gamers for the hit survival game ARK: Survival Evolved, was a key component of the surprising resolution of the Myth of Empires legal dispute. The sandbox multiplayer game was removed from Steam following a copyright infringement claim.

Studio Wildcard, a subsidiary of Snail Games, alleged that source code from ARK: Survival Evolved had been used in Myth of Empires. A source code comparison analysis conducted by none other than Robert Zeidman at the behest of a US court showed that Angela (the developer of Myth of Empires) had indeed copied substantial portions of Studio Wildcard's copyrighted source code.

So far, it's not that uncommon of an occurrence in game development or software development. The novelty mainly resides in the resolution: Snail Games, through Studio Wildcard, is now partnering with Angela to re-release the game early next year on PC stores such as Steam and on consoles, too.

I spoke with Studio Wildcard Co-Founder and CEO Doug Kennedy to discuss what happened behind the scenes, how they're going to help with the Myth of Empires re-launch, whether this impacted the upcoming ARK projects (Survival Ascended is due later this month, while ARK 2 is scheduled for late 2024), and the possibility of SWC acting as publishing partner for other games.

Let's go back to the beginning when the game first launched on Steam early access. Then, it was delisted from Steam about a month later. I guess this is where you saw a copyright infringement in your case, right? So you weren't aware of Myth of Empires before it was published on Steam.

Yeah, we weren't aware of Myth of Empires. It was a situation where a number of people from our community brought the game to our attention, and after a