Dark and Darker Dev Ordered to Pay Nexon $6 Million

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home February 16, 2025 8 Views 6 Min Read
Dark and Darker Dev Ordered to Pay Nexon $6 Million
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Summary

  • A South Korean court orders Ironmace to pay Nexon nearly $6 million in damages over a trade secrets violation.
  • The court found Ironmace not guilty of copyright infringement but liable for misappropriating Nexon’s assets.
  • Despite the judgment, Dark and Darker’s operations remain unaffected, but Nexon plans further legal action.

A South Korean court has issued a judgment in a case between Nexon and Dark and Darker developer Ironmace, ordering the latter to pay Nexon almost $6 million USD in damages. Dark and Darker first launched on PC in 2023 and impressed many players with its hardcore first-person fantasy extraction-style gameplay.

Seemingly coming out of nowhere with a demo in 2023, Dark and Darker won fans with its blending of dark fantasy and extraction-based multiplayer. Unlike many extraction games, which are often derived from modern military or sci-fi inspirations, Dark and Darker casts players as parties of adventurers scrambling to delve deep into a dungeon and escape alive. Both in the dungeon and on the way out, they’ll be forced to contend with both the dungeon’s monsters and other adventurers seeking an easy score by downing another player. Developer Ironmace even launched a mobile edition co-developed with PUBG Battlegrounds publisher Krafton.

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Unfortunately, Dark and Darker‘s fortunes as a hit first-person dungeon RPG were disrupted when Nexon filed suit against developer Ironmace, claiming copyright infringement. According to The Korea Times, a South Korean court has dismissed Nexon’s claim of copyright infringement. Unfortunately for the studio, the same court also ordered Ironmace to pay Nexon 8.5 billion won in damages (about $5.7 million USD).

Dark and Darker Dev to Pay Nexon Damages Over Trade Secrets Violation

While Ironmace was found effectively innocent of copyright infringement in the case, the judgment ultimately rested on how copyright is actually defined. Nexon claimed that Dark and Darker was developed with assets stolen from a canceled project called P3. It alleged that Dark and Darker‘s developers, who were former Nexon employees, left the company after the project was canceled, then formed Ironmace, and based the Dark and Darker gameplay experience on the work taken from P3.

The court said that since P3 was never actually released, it isn’t eligible for a copyright, making Nexon’s claim inapplicable. However, it still found Ironmace liable for infringing on Nexon’s trade secrets, which cover information and assets that have economic value because they’re secret, and ordered the indie studio to “fully compensate” for the damages.

While it looks like the court decision doesn’t endanger Dark and Darker‘s operations (beyond the financial impact to Ironmace itself), Nexon said that it’s not quite done with the case yet. In a statement, Nexon said it plans to seek further action from a higher court in Korea. Ironmace has not yet issued a statement of its own, and at the moment Dark and Darker is operating as normal. That should be a relief for existing fans and curious players that might’ve received the Dark and Darker Legendary Status DLC via a recent Epic Game Store giveaway.

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