Laniatus, the team behind the Kickstarter MMO Magic to Master, claimed last week that they had been falsely accused of copyright infringement by Gameforge, and that their campaign and other accounts would be back soon.
In their post last week, Laniatus said that “Our company has been unequivocally informed that the allegations made by the concerned company have infringed upon our rights and misrepresented our brand”, but offered little in the way of details. They may not have even filed any sort of legal complaint, as their statement offered talk of “we will respond” and “the real lawsuit and complaint that we will initiate will set an example”. The company had been spotted using fake reviews in its campaign materials, later claiming this to have been a mistake after pulling them.
Yet, despite the alleged new status, they were not even certain about starting up their Kickstarter campaign again.
Since Laniatus shared their statement and something on their intentions, we reached out to Gameforge for comment on the whole Magic to Master situation.
A Gameforge spokesperson responded to these latest developments, saying:
“Gameforge would like to clarify that we are not associated with the company making all those wild allegations, nor do we have any business dealings or partnerships with them. Our focus is solely on our own studio and the games developed by our trusted partners, including Webzen, for which we hold the necessary licenses to legally publish in specific regions. Our priority is to protect the integrity of our communities and the rights of our partners' assets, which includes preventing unauthorized use or distribution. While we acknowledge a recent YouTube copyright strike, we want to emphasize that it was our rightful action to safeguard our partners' intellectual property.
Apart from this incident, we have had no other interactions with the mentioned company, and we have no interest in engaging with them. Our intention is not to hinder anyone but rather to ensure proper usage of copyrighted materials."
There have been no further updates from Laniatus, and Gameforge is focused on its partnerships and operations. As far as Magic to Master, we’ll have to see if anything comes of this.
