Misery developer Platypus Entertainment has announced that the game has made a return to Steam, following a DMCA claim that was issued by Stalker 2 developer GSC Game World.
In a news post on Steam, the studio says that it has “resolved” the “misunderstanding” it had with GSC Game World, following a conversation with one of the Ukrainian developer’s lawyers.
Specifically, Platypus makes reference to two issues it says were “not mentioned in the DMCA claim” and that the studio wasn’t aware of. Both issues have now been resolved, and it seems like that’s what has allowed Misery to be reinstated on Steam.
The first issue revolved around a “helicopter model in the files” of Misery. Platypus says the game is “an evolution of education, non-commercial projects”, and that the model, which has now been removed, “was unintentionally left in [Misery”s] resources as a legacy leftover”.
Platypus goes on to say that the helicopter model in question can’t be seen anywhere in Misery itself, but the studio doesn’t actually state exactly where it got the model from. Still, this appears to be one of the key points of contention for GSC Game World.
The second point pertains to some of the guitar-based folk songs being played in Misery. Platypus says that for the Stalker games, GSC Game World “used popular folk songs” for ambient guitar-playing NPCs, and that someone affiliated with Platypus “wrote original covers of some of these songs”.
However, it turns out that some of the songs used by Platypus “were specifically written or exclusively licensed by GSC”, so those songs have been removed. However, the studio is adamant that “no original files from GSC games were used”.
If you need a reminder, Misery was taken down from Steam earlier this week following a DMCA claim by Stalker 2‘s GSC Game World, which alleged that Platypus Entertainment’s game infringed GSC’s copyright.
This led to a rather unfortunately slur-laden Discord message from developer Maewing, who subsequently apologized for their “past words” and “old posts”, although that doesn’t really apply to a message that was clearly posted after the strike was filed.
That, however, is an issue that Platypus has addressed in its most recent Steam news post; the studio says it has “established a strict policy on Discord moderation”, which means it’s no longer an “anarchy dumpster fire”.
In any case, if you’d like to check out Misery, you can do so right now on PC via Steam. Stay tuned for more on this.
