The Korean courts have ruled that Ironmace's dungeon-crawling PvPvE action RPG Dark and Darker did not infringe on Nexon's copyright, but that it did infringe on the company's trade secrets, necessitating a payment of around 8.5 billion Korean won (around $6 million).
Per Korean news platform Chosun, the Seoul Central District Court's Civil Division 63 came to the decision yesterday. It essentially represents both a win and a loss for Ironmace.
For context, since 2023, Dark and Darker has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle between developer Ironmace and Korean studio Nexon, several ex-employees of which make up some of Ironmace's ranks.
Nexon alleged in its lawsuit that Dark and Darker bore striking similarities to an internal game tentatively codenamed P3. That project's leader Ju-Hyun Choi was fired from Nexon in August 2021 and went on to create Dark and Darker alongside several other ex-Nexon staffers.
According to Nexon, assets from P3's development were leaked by Choi onto an external non-Nexon server, and those assets were instrumental in Choi's decision to try and create a game that would play similarly to P3.
The lawsuit led to Nexon issuing a DMCA takedown against Dark and Darker on Steam in March 2023 (although the game has since been restored to the platform) and also resulted in a delay to the game's eventual 1.0 release, according to Ironmace.
From Chosun's report, it sounds as though the Korean court agrees with Nexon that material was leaked onto a server from inside the company, but the court doesn't consider this matter to fall under the umbrella of copyright infringement.
It's not clear whether Nexon will pursue any further legal action against Ironmace and Dark and Darker, but for now, it looks as though the studio and its game won't be facing any more imminent legal threats or takedowns.
You can check out Dark and Darker right now on PC and mobile devices.
