Ward B team also claims gun maker licensed stolen design into Escape From Tarkov

It’s hard enough being an indie developer, even one with industry skills from franchises like Call of Duty, Halo and Destiny like Ward B. So when a Russian arms manufacturer came knocking, and a marketing partnership suggested who might need a little capital injection into his game, Ward B jumped at the chance.

Since 2019, Ward B has been working on a game called Oceanic, a futuristic first-person shooter set in a post-apocalyptic version of Earth where global warming has caused ocean levels to rise catastrophically (hence the name). As a shooter, weapons will play an important role in Oceanic’s gameplay, and Ward B loved to show off Oceanic’s weapons to generate excitement for the game.

One such weapon was the Mastodon EPM28, an energy shotgun with a battery-powered magazine instead of standard shotgun shells. The gun certainly looks cool enough for a contractor representing Kalashnikov to approach Ward B with a proposal. They would make the EMP28 Mastodon into a genuine gun kit for their existing MP-155 shotgun, and Ward B would replace the manufacturer of the Mastodon kit with Kalashnikov Group.

At first, Ward B was quite excited about the possibility of this marketing deal, but then the representative disappeared, and there was never an official contract. A few months later, Kalashnikov announced the MP-155 Ultima shotgun, a gun that at first glance looked different from the Mastodon so you wouldn’t confuse the two. However, Ward B CEO Marcellino Sauceda says Kalashnikov has shot down his game design.

“They completely stole it,” Sauceda said in an  IGN  interview. While the overall body shape looks different enough, there are enough minor details that Sauceda points out to see where Kalishnikov started with the Mastodon before ending up with the MP-155 Ultima. First, there’s the removable stock design, which Sauceda says is impractical for a real-world rifle, but not for an energy-based weapon with significantly less recoil. Then there are the loop and trailer rails, which bear some resemblance.

But the real problem with Sauceda is a small indentation on the left side of the gun. On the Mastodon, that notch is where a small selector switch allows the user to change the firing mode. On the MP-155, the switch is turned off, but the notch is still there.

Kalishnikov, of course, denies copying any part of Ward B’s design on the MP-155 Ultima.

So what can Ward B do? Little. “We have abandoned the goal of legally claiming ownership,” said Sauceda. “We got to the point where we realised that because Kalashnikov Concern was out of the country, filing any official legal action would require us to be present in Russia, which unfortunately our funding would not cover.”

To make matters worse, Kalishnikov loaned the MP-155 Ultimate for use as an in-game shotgun in Escape from Tarkov. The Mastodon has come full circle from video games to real life and then back to video games.

Source: globalgaming