Soviet city-builder removed from Steam after player files “nonsense” copyright claim

Soviet city-builder Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic has been removed from Steam after a disgruntled fan filed a “nonsense” DMCA request.

According to 3Division, the copyright claim was made by a fan who previously wrote a guide on how to play a more realistic version of Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic and then got annoyed when developers started work on an actual realistic mode.

“He thinks he invented it or made it possible. Well, if he had kindly asked, we would have added him into the game’s credits,” wrote 3Division. “But first we need to finish the game, then we can update the game’s credits”

The studio then claim this player then “decided to contact us as a lawyer, and started to abuse the YouTube report system issuing copyright strikes to one of our most helpful influencers bbaljo. As he chose to use extortion and abuse, we became angry about this, and decided to never mention the name of the challenge he allegedly ‘invented’ again, and ignore him.”

However, the player then reported their website, which was taken down as were several YouTube videos before the game itself was removed from Steam.

“He was successful because those reports are handled by bots, not humans. We will issue our reaction and hopefully we will get answers soon from human employees of YouTube, Wix and Valve, who can evaluate his actual claims and agree that this is nonsense.”

After sharing his original guide and picking it apart, 3Division wrote: “He literally just created a guide with some possible way to play the game and called it Cosmonaut mode, but it is not helping the development process. Only one thing he was helpful in, is that the popularity of his guide showed us how much people wanted to play the game in a realistic and more challenging way.”

3Division posted an update yesterday saying it had filed a counter-notice to the DMCA request and was waiting for a response from Steam. It then shared several updated features it is working on for Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic.

“Even if we are facing attacks, we still have enough resources to continue the development of the game even if the game is banned for months or years. But the truth always wins,” 3Division wrote.

In other news, Pokémon Go creator Niantic has faced backlash after asking players to stay away from a public park so a ticketed event could go ahead.