Ironmace must now pay Nexon, which brings this long-running legal battle to a partial conclusion.

The South Korean Supreme Court ordered Ironmace to pay Nexon 5.7 billion won, $3.84 million, in damages, concluding the civil lawsuit between the publisher and developer. The decision does not represent a clear victory for either party, and criminal proceedings related to Nexon’s allegations are ongoing. Dark and Darker, a fantasy dungeon crawler game, was a massive hit at the 2023 Steam Next Fest before legal issues overshadowed the game. Ironmace‘s founding members were all former Nexon employees, and Nexon claims they infringed on copyrights and stole its trade secrets to create Dark and Darker. At the center of the dispute is Project P3, a game similar to Dark and Darker that Nexon canceled, leading to the departure of Ironmace’s founders.

Last year, a lower court ruled that Ironmace did not infringe on Nexon’s copyrights but did violate the company’s trade secrets. Ironmace was ordered to pay 8.5 billion won, approximately $5.9 million, in damages. It appears that the Supreme Court reduced the amount of damages while upholding the decision’s substance. Criminal proceedings regarding Ironmace’s alleged use of materials taken from Nexon are ongoing. In 2023, police raided the company’s offices. The conclusion of this civil case is akin to King Solomon’s judgment to cut the infant in two. Nexon would have preferred Ironmace to be convicted of copyright infringement and perhaps even take Dark and Darker offline. Meanwhile, Ironmace is clearly struggling to pay the damages.

We are living in an era of ambiguous and never-ending legal drama between developers and publishers. The controversies surrounding Disco Elysium are still fresh in our minds, and it seems the battle over Ashes of Creation has only just begun, while the Kickstarter-funded MMO has died for good. One of the most recent battles may be heading toward the clearest resolution yet: the Subnautica leadership team has been reinstated following the ruling against Krafton.

Source: PCGamer, This Is Game