Myth of Empires is an online sandbox survival game, released as Early Access in November 2021. However, Steam has now removed the game. This is because Myth of Empires faces allegations from another developer over copyright allegations.
Angela Games, Myth of Empires’ developer, has not revealed the source of the game’s removal request. However, PC Gamer has verified from documents that Studio Wildcard and Snail Games have requested the removal. These two studios have developed and published Ark: Survival Evolved respectively.
THE ALLEGATIONS
The takedown request has also traced Angela Games’ history. It states that one founder of Angela Games is also a former employee of Snail Games China, Studio Wildcard’s parent company. This employee has had access to Ark: Survival Evolved’s source code.
With Myth of Empires’ release in 2021, Studio Wildcard had become “understandably concerned”. Among the two games, many aspects were also found to be similar. This included identical gameplay mechanics, which could not be a mere coincidence.
“Studio Wildcard and Snail Games USA Inc have a good faith belief that Myth of Empires was built by: (1) stealing the Ark: Survival Evolved source code and (2) using the stolen source code as the gameplay foundation for Myth of Empires. Key employees of the developer of Myth of Empires worked at the Chinese parent of Snail Games USA Inc and at least one of them had the credentials that enabled them to access the Ark: Survival Evolved source code.”
Studio Wildcard has been able to compare code headers in the Myth of Empires executable. A preliminary analysis found hundreds of matching class, variable, and function names. Following this, Studio Wildcard confirmed that Angela Games had used Ark: Survival Evolved’s source code.
The devs had presented a summary of findings to Valve Corporation in December. Following this, Steam has removed Myth of Empires since the 3rd of December.
ANGELA GAMES RESPONDS
“Our development team solemnly declares: Angela Game fully owns all rights and property associated with Myth of Empires and will actively respond to any doubts or allegations on this point. We are in active contact with Steam and are doing our best to restore the game to their store. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused players.”
– Angela Games
Regarding the rumours of involved parties in the delisting incident, please read this announcement. pic.twitter.com/oxKALUWyeB
— Myth Of Empires (@MythOfEmpires) December 8, 2021
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. For more content, stay with us, here at Spiel Times.
Make sure you also subscribe to our push-notifications and never miss an update from the world of video games. Follow us on Twitter @spieltimes for the latest PS5 restock and drop. Until next time, Stay Safe and Happy Gaming!
