Post-apocalyptic survival shooter Misery’s Steam page is back online, with developers Platypus Entertainment claiming that they’ve resolved a “misunderstanding” which led to an alleged DMCA takedown from Stalker creators GSC Game World. Platypus say that as part of this apparent resolution, they’ve removed a helicopter model, some guitar songs, and references to GSC’s games from their game at the request of the Stalker studio.
This is all according to a new Steam post from Platypus about the game’s Steam listing re-appearing on the storefront.
After they filed a counter-claim to the alleged takedown request, the studio assert that this is how things played out: “This Wednesday we received a message from GSC lawyer team elaborating on their claims against MISERY, and we resolved this misunderstanding. While we are adamant that MISERY does not infringe on any GSC-owned IP regarding the world, setting, characters, etc., as claimed in the original notice, there were two issues we were not aware of at the time of the strike and which were not mentioned in the DMCA claim.”
The first of these two issues is cited as being a helicopter model in Misery’s files, which Platypus claim was “unintentionally left in the resources as a legacy leftover, but it was NEVER used in the game, and players NEVER saw it in the game”. The second are some guitar songs. “GSC games used popular folk songs as their guitar melodies, including Tsyganochka, for instance,” Platypus assert. “MISERY dev’s friend wrote original covers of some of these songs, and they were used in MISERY as guitar songs. NO ORIGINAL FILES FROM GSC GAMES WERE USED. It turned out that some (not all!) of the songs were specifically written or exclusively licensed by GSC.”
Platypus say both of these, as well as some “easter eggs” referencing GSC’s games have been removed at the Stalker devs’ request. The Misery developers add that they “wish the DMCA claim had not been used as the first step in communication” and claim the matter’s been “extremely painful financially, as it led to a wave of refunds and just shutting down a game for a week in the release month”.
I’ve once again reached out to GSC Game World, who as far as I can tell are still yet to publicly acknowledge or comment on this situation, for comment.
As we reported in our previous story on Misery’s alleged takedown, a screenshot taken by a Reddit user shows one of its developers going by the handle Maewing initially responding to the Steam page being taken down with a Discord post that read “FUCKING GSK GAY WORLD SEND US STRIKE FOR WIERD AHH SHIT, JUST LOOK AT THE CLAIMS OF THOSE [r-slur]. We will fight rn to return our game back!!!”. That Discord post was subsequently edited and the developer apologised for “old posts and comments that included inappropriate and offensive statements”.
Reddit users also spotted signs of support in Platypus’ Discord server for Russia in the ongoing conflict between it and Ukraine, where GSC are based. While alleged scrubbing of Discord has meant I’ve not been able to verify these screenshots, they include racial slurs, support for the Russian state-linked Wagner Group – a private military company accused of war crimes – and instances of the letter Z, which has become a symbol of public support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Maewing claimed in the Discord post which saw them apologise that “I do not support any form of extremism, violence, or discrimination against any group of people. I truly value and respect our players and friends from all countries and backgrounds.” In Platypus’ latest Steam post, the studio ask anyone who’s review bombed a GSC game over the situation to go back and change those comments.
Given all of that context, it’s difficult to just draw a line under the issue as Platypus’ post tries to without any direct response from GSC. As things stand, Misery’s back live, so we’ll have to see if any further developments are forthcoming which contradict what Platypus claim has happened here.
