Dark and Darker, Ironmace Games’ player vs player vs enemy dungeon crawler, has caused a stir, and not just because people have been looking forward to it. So, what were all these legal shenanigans about? If that’s what you’re wondering, here are the Dark and Darker legal issues, explained.
Dark and Darker’s legal issues, which saw the game temporarily removed from Steam, stemmed from a dispute with a former publisher, Nexon. No, not Nacon; that was a whole different legal drama.
This situation had been going on since at least 2021 when Nexon filed a legal complaint alleging that Ironmace Games had stolen code. The short version was that Nexon says that Ironmace took code and assets from a canceled project, left, and went to make their own copy of the game they were working on. The long version? You might want to strap in for this.
Prior to forming Ironmace, some of the developer’s staff worked for Nexon (based in South Korea), developing a game called P3 Project. According to Nexon’s 2023 US filing (there’s a US and a South Korean case ongoing), the P3 Project was a fantasy game “.. where players hunt for items while fighting each other and the monsters in the game.”
They alleged that, while the project was canceled, the developers who later became Ironmace stole code and assets and that “P3 and Dark and Darker are substantially the same game.” Ironmace’s Ju-Hyun Choi and Terence Seungha Park (the latter of whom founded the company) were named as well as the company itself.
So, more than just arguing that Darker and Darker is a P3 clone, Nexon alleges that the game uses assets taken from the stolen project. How many assets? The 2023 filing claims that “11,602 P3 Project files” were taken. They also allege that Choi recruited people from Nexon’s P3 team to help recreate the game outside of Nexon.
But this was more than just a case of legal back and forth. In response to Nexon’s 2021 complaint, the South Korean police raided Ironmace’s office. Ironmace claimed that nothing had been taken, but you can bet not a lot of work got done that day.
When these issues first arose, Ironmace didn’t engage with the media much. But the company did post statements to Reddit and the Dark and Darker discord. One statement (via PC Gamer) read:
“Our code was built from scratch. Most of our assets are purchased from the Unreal marketplace. All other assets and all game designs docs were created in house. This has already been audited by an outside agency. As far as we know you cannot copyright a game genre.”
The statement suggested the stolen code allegations stem from a “..disgruntled 3rd party”. In other words, they were refuting the allegations and pressing on with development. But then, in March of 2024, Dark and Darker was removed from Steam.
Nexon filed a DMCA takedown, which led to Valve removing it from the digital storefront in March. Ironmace also received a cease and desist and in response, issued another Discord statement. It also advised players to torrent its latest playtest.
Nexon states that, according to their investigation, “Dark and Darker appears to have been built and developed using trades secrets and copyrighted information, copied and stolen from Nexon.” We would like to show that these allegations are baseless. No copyrighted materials or misappropriated trade secrets from Nexon were used by IRONMACE.” However, the game is now back on Steam and the Epic Games Store, so you can download it from there. Problem sorted, right? Not quite.
The bulk of this legal drama happened in mid-2013, so what happened next? Dark and Darker is back on Steam, so we know that Ironmace Games wasn’t forced to stop selling the game. Did this mean they won? Not at all.
As reported by GamesRadar, a South Korean court ruled that while Ironmace wasn’t guilty of copyright infringement, the developer did infringe on Nexon’s trade secrets. As a result, Ironmace has to pay the equivalent of nearly $6 million in damages. Dark and Darker isn’t short on players, with tens of thousands of players diving into the online dungeoneering game. But is it profitable enough for them to eat that cost? We’ll have to wait to find out.
Ironmace might have seen the back of this, either. Nexon has implied they’ll be taking further action (via PCGamer) and that “After carefully reviewing the ruling, we plan to seek further legal judgment through a higher court.”
And those are the Dark and Darker legal issues, explained.
The above article was updated on 2/20/25 by the original author to include additional information about the legal issues.
