Haunted videogame No Players Online resurrected on Steam after a disgruntled "former friend" had it exorcised via DMCA

"Spiritual successor" astatine ample again aft being taken down a week aft launch

A fewer weeks ago, developers Beeswax Games released a "spiritual successor" to 2019 freeware crippled No Players Online connected Steam. If you've not played the aged freeware task - inactive disposable connected Itch - it's 1 of those haunted bundle jobbies that accentuate the eerieness of aged 3D simulation tech, and successful this case, abandoned FPS multiplayer maps. I was looking guardant to playing the successor. But then, spookily, the Steam leafage vanished. And now, spookily, it's back.

According to Beeswax, the crippled was deed by a Digital Millennium Copyright Act assertion filed by a "former friend" who "claimed to beryllium co-author of the crippled contempt not having done thing for it". Valve past took the crippled down connected 13th November, a week aft release. The developers filed a counter-notice, and Valve person present reinstated the Steam merchandise aft the complainant neglected to respond to that counter-notice successful time.

You tin work developer Adam Pype's afloat relationship of events here. It doesn't sanction the "former friend", and I'm not going to speculate astir their identity. Pype says the upheaval has outgo the task dearly, penning that "we spent 2 and a fractional years of our lives and a ton of wealth making this game. we besides person a batch of radical who believed successful america and wanted america to succeed. it's brainsick to maine that idiosyncratic tin conscionable instrumentality down our crippled by filling retired a elemental form, and it's been pugnacious trying to reconcile with this betrayal from idiosyncratic one considered a beloved friend."

Pype continues that "this concern has had a important interaction connected us, particularly fixed however important the archetypal months aft merchandise are for tiny indies similar us. we mislaid retired connected overmuch needed momentum and gross close aft the merchandise of our crippled and we're unsure if we volition beryllium capable to retrieve financially from this fixed our already bladed margins."

I haven't been keeping up with latest happenings successful DMCA-land, but this peculiar ineligible instauration has attracted overmuch disapproval for being casual to abuse. Back successful 2017, Alice O (RPS successful peace) reported connected the yoinking from merchantability of River City Ransom Underground, commenting that DMCA filings "don't necessitate that the accuser connection impervious that they clasp the rights, putting the load of clip and effort (and sometimes money) connected the accused". More precocious successful 2023, a assemblage usher writer had ace city-builder Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic removed from Steam for a period oregon so, aft developers 3Division added a mode that seemingly took a small inspiration from the writer's work.

Natalie Clayton had a uncommon aged clip with No Players Online backmost successful 2019. "No Players Online sees me, booting up aged games, looking for that saccharine nostalgia kick, and suggests that possibly I fto dormant things enactment buried," she wrote. These cautionary sentiments notwithstanding, I'm thankful that the spiritual successor has escaped the sedate of DMCAing. It expands connected the freeware game's premise with a faux-90s desktop interface and a clump of different, presumably cursed games to download from assorted not-forums.