Dark and Darker launches then deletes a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for copyright dispute

A GoFundMe campaign to raise money to support the salaries and legal costs for Dark and Darker developer Ironmace was taken offline less than an hour after it went live.

As spotted by PC Gamer, the fundraiser managed to raise $46,000 of its $500,000 goal before the campaign was removed due to reports it was "prematurely announced".

Dark and Darker was removed from Steam last weekend after the team was served with a cease and desist request from publisher Nexon, which alleges that some of Dark and Darker's development code – which was created by members of Ironmace's team whilst they still worked at the publisher – originates from Nexon's own dungeon crawler, codenamed P3.

"Support the Ironmace team in light of the known ongoing legal circumstances," the fundraising page said before it was removed. "All donations will be used as supplementary funding towards the known legal circumstances and also provide continued salary towards the development team."

Since then, chatter on the game's Discord server suggests that there had originally been some confusion over the authenticity of the fundraiser. But after it was deemed to be real, it seemed the campaign was launched "without approval due to a passionate member of the team taking matters into his own hands", which is why it was taken down.

"We have currently paused the campaign for now as it was prematurely announced," Discord admin Graysun later explained. "We appreciate the enormous amount of support shown in such a little amount of time!

"We are very sorry for the confusion and will take the proper steps to resolve this within the next few hours. We will make another announcement on how the GoFundMe will be handled."

The developer recently responded to a DMCA takedown notice from Nexon, calling the claim "baseless". 

"Nexon states that according to their investigation, 'Dark and Darker appears to have been built and developed using trade secrets and copyrighted information, copied and stolen from Nexon'," the statement says. "We would like to show that these allegations are baseless. No copyrighted materials or misappropriated trade secrets from Nexon were used by Ironmace."

"In the takedown notice," Ironmace adds, "Nexon lists their registered copyrights pertaining to the P3 Project, which were registered just last month, more than six months after Dark and Darker was revealed to the public, as the subject of the alleged infringement." 

The game's removal from Steam comes just weeks after we learned that Dark and Darker devs could face legal action following allegations that they stole assets from their previous employer, Nexon. 

The developer was forced to reassure fans via Discord that whilst the police did pay the studio a visit, "it was a quick process, and nothing was found", adding that the visit would have "no delay in development, and there is nothing to worry about".

We also recently learned that a Dark and Darker player had reportedly been asked to join a cheat server via Discord which offers a cheat package for the game in exchange for $10 in real-world currency. According to the message, the package will give the player Chams, Noclip cheats, and the ability to disconnect other players.

Thinking about getting started with the fantasy FPS if/when it returns? Take a look at our Dark and Darker class guide.