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As such, it seems as though the game has been pulled from Steam until this is resolved. That is, at least, what Spiral is telling the public.
Trek Industries' David Prassel issued the following statement to the Orion: Prelude Steam page just a few short hours ago. Prelude is the game that actually "came out" from the studio and also had its fair share of controversy including the use of stolen assets and poor treatment of employees. They have used stolen assets for the Orion: Prelude achievements and even an asset from Natural Selection 2.
So apparently Activision has removed ORION from Steam. This was done via a DMCA takedown request stating:
“on behalf of Activision, who alleges that the game Orion uses weapon art content from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The weapon art in question includes the M8A7 rifle, the Haymaker rifle, and the Bal-27 rifle."
I've uploaded comparisons of the weapons in question, from both games. I had to guess on weapons as no specific assets or images were provided to me, nor was I contacted by Steam/Valve or Activision prior to having the game removed from Steam.
This is extremely serious that a DCMA request has removed our entire game from sale, during the biggest sale event of the year. Apparently no cross-checking was done by our Partner, who we've been with for over 5 years and I have seen better and would expect better from them. At minimum, to contact us regarding our assets/defense before taking any action.
We've made Steam our primary platform, but this has put a definite scare into us going forward considering our entire livelihood can be pulled without a moments notice, without any warning or proper verification. I cannot even confirm that the representative from Activision is a real person as absolutely no results pop up in any of my searches.
We have worked VERY hard for many years to not only ensure our community and products were great and supported, but we made sure that we were doing a great service to Steam as a platform and programs like Early Access. This is extremely evident in any of our Product reviews.
We need everyones help and support to rectify this immediately as this erroneous claim has already costed what is a very small team a significant amount of money and we need it remedied ASAP so we can get back to work on real content, something that Activision should take note of.
“on behalf of Activision, who alleges that the game Orion uses weapon art content from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The weapon art in question includes the M8A7 rifle, the Haymaker rifle, and the Bal-27 rifle."
I've uploaded comparisons of the weapons in question, from both games. I had to guess on weapons as no specific assets or images were provided to me, nor was I contacted by Steam/Valve or Activision prior to having the game removed from Steam.
This is extremely serious that a DCMA request has removed our entire game from sale, during the biggest sale event of the year. Apparently no cross-checking was done by our Partner, who we've been with for over 5 years and I have seen better and would expect better from them. At minimum, to contact us regarding our assets/defense before taking any action.
We've made Steam our primary platform, but this has put a definite scare into us going forward considering our entire livelihood can be pulled without a moments notice, without any warning or proper verification. I cannot even confirm that the representative from Activision is a real person as absolutely no results pop up in any of my searches.
We have worked VERY hard for many years to not only ensure our community and products were great and supported, but we made sure that we were doing a great service to Steam as a platform and programs like Early Access. This is extremely evident in any of our Product reviews.
We need everyones help and support to rectify this immediately as this erroneous claim has already costed what is a very small team a significant amount of money and we need it remedied ASAP so we can get back to work on real content, something that Activision should take note of.
Prassel included the following image comparisons of two of the weapons in question.
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You may think that there are maybe some similarities between the Haymaker and the Orion weapon, and virtually nothing similar between the other two weapons. Right? Well, a more appropriate comparison shows the in-game models of the weapons in question (via NeoGAF).
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But wait, there's more! This fellow shows up about 15 seconds into a recent trailer for Orion.
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I wonder where they stole that idea from...
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Oh. Yeah, I'm sure this will go very well for them. I somehow think that Activision will be the least of Trek's worries.
Infiltrator | Orion trailer