Off the Shelf Media

Disclaimer: This article does not contain legal advice, and members of the Off the Shelf Media team are not to be viewed as legal authorities. Facts presented are readily available to the public online. Any views expressed belong to the reporter. 

Misery hit the shelves, or rather the Steam store page, and was an instant success, indicated by the 300,000 players who downloaded the demo before launch. In fact, you may have seen it featured in my last article ahead of Halloween. 

However, on November 7th, only seven days after the games release, Platypus Entertainment, the developers of the game, received two massive pieces of news: The first being that they had won an award from DevGamm via community vote, and the second that they received a DMCA strike from GSC Game World, the developer of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., consequently removing Misery from the Steam Store page indefinitely.  

In a Steam post shared to the community page that announced the news, Platypus Entertainment wrote, “MISERY is a completely different concept, happening in the fictional Republic of Zaslavie, and it has nothing to do with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, Chernobyl, etc. MISERY uses no characters, plot, storyline, assets, monsters, music, code, etc., from their games. It is all either originally created or legally licensed.” 

As of the publication of this article, the strike still holds, and the game is unavailable for purchase. However, the game is still playable for those who purchased it, and the servers remain active as well as their Discord. Our team had attempted to reach out via Discord for comment but did not receive a response. 

What will a DMCA strike mean for the future of Misery, and where does it leave its players?

What is a DMCA strike?

A Digital Millennium Copyright Act Strike means that a person or company, in this case GSC Game World, believes that their copyright has been infringed. This case would be by Platypus Entertainment within the game Misery. The strike is a formal action claiming that their intellectual property was used unlawfully. The same type of event could occur for using unlicensed music in a YouTube or Twitch stream. 

What makes this different is that it is between video games. 

In the aforementioned Steam post, Platypus Entertainment also shared, “In their claim, they state that MISERY infringes on their IP and that players’ reviews mention S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which means it hurts their interests. This is absolutely untrue, and we will fight back to reinstate MISERY on Steam.” 

My understanding, without any legal training or authority, is that such a strike is difficult to stand. Typically, in terms of video games, it is incredibly hard for such a strike to exist without the direct use of assets such as images, sounds/music, or invented names. I want to reiterate that if any of those assets were used, then the strike has clear credence.

Consider the vast amount of games that are incredibly similar but do not receive strikes or coexist with their counterparts that are so familiar. I am not suggesting Palworld plagiarizes any game in particular, even though it might be reminiscent of another popular game or franchise, even it is still openly available across every major platform. One of the only examples I can remember that was pulled was Limbo of the Lost in 2008. It had stolen direct assets from many games, including Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You can check out an example here, as the publication that broke the story is no longer active. 

Could the strike hold?

Just one look at Misery, and you can tell that it would be seemingly impossible for graphic assets to have been taken from GSC’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. As for sound and mechanics, that is possible, but without more information, it is uncertain where they place the accusation of plagiarism. I expect Misery to be available for sale again, but how did a strike come to pass?

As additional background, GSC Game World is a Ukrainian-based company, while the lead developer for Misery is Russian and was cited as making inflammatory statements in the game’s Discord before issuing an apology, according to Reddit. There is speculation that this had an influence, but we did not find any hard evidence to confirm or deny.

I personally have never played S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but have only heard good things about the franchise. The connection I have made between S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Misery is like that of Arma and the DayZ mod. For those that do not know, the Arma Franchise is a hyperrealistic first-person shooter (FPS) game series that really puts an emphasis on realism. The DayZ mod for Arma 2 was largely developed by one person and essentially took the players to a fictional map where zombies had ravaged the world and were forced to survive in a unique player-versus-player (PvP) environment. It garnered so much success that the modder was actually hired to help develop the standalone title DayZ. 

Now, in the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., another incredibly popular mod exists called “Misery” for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat. It did much of the same that the DayZ mod did by turning the game up to 11 and into a survival crafting focus. 

The Misery mod and the recent game Misery, which has been the focus of this article, are two completely separate entities, made by entirely different people. One is a mod for an existing game, and the other is an independent title. The two do share a focus on survival crafting, but this is a critical distinction: the Misery mod was not made nor sold by GSC Game World. It was free for anyone to download. These games all share a similar theme of surviving in a post-fallout soviet Bloc-style country, but the solo dev for the game Misery developed a fictional country for the setting of his game world. 

It’s worth repeating, I did not play S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but in comparing the Misery Mod and the standalone game Misery, it is clear that the two are far more similar than the standalone game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the standalone game Misery. 

Fans of the Misery mod were most likely the ones who made the initial comparison to the game Misery. At a quick glance, the two seem incredibly different in style, but perhaps not in gameplay loop. Even if the standalone game is similar to the mod, it should not have a bearing on copyright unless direct assets were taken from the standalone S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. 

Inspiration is not theft, and if you don’t believe me, then listen to these two talk about farming games. There are also a slew of other similar-style games, such as the Metro franchise, which I have played somewhat and thoroughly enjoyed. There are even more indie games that aim to copy the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series at least in terms of style and gameplay, but have not received such legal interventions at this time. 

What next?

So, where does this put Misery? Well, for the moment, only those who bought it before November 7th can play. There has even been at least one update since it was pulled. I expect to see the game return, but I would not begin to speculate on a date. While emotions might run high for those who are close to either game, it is important to keep in mind that no one is privy to all the details behind the strike. 

With what has been revealed to the public, it’s hard to think it will stick, as it rarely does with video games, assuming no assets were directly stolen. But in a realm where anything is possible, nothing is guaranteed.