Hi everyone,
I don't know how to say this, so I'm starting it off by why I removed the Asylum map, briefly share how I feel about the decision and how I found out.
So as you all know I released the highly anticipated Asylum map, the third map of the game this last friday the 11th of September. On the first day or two I received a great response from lots of you telling me you loved the level, and that it actually met the requests that you guys have made to me over the last months asking for a scarier than normal level. I was really happy to see the positive response the map had so far received.
However, today I started to see comments under my Youtube trailer video of the map, that said this map looks a lot like a map from Outlast. After getting multiple comments like this within a short timespan, I decided to do some thorough checking, and came to the same conclusion as the comments that it indeed looks extremely similar. This immediatly shocked me. I have spent months making this anomaly level.
I instantly went home to do my research and was shocked by the result. I had no idea, the friends I tested with had no idea, and I was dumbfounded. I myself had never played the Outlast game, and please note that this game came out in 2013. Back then I did not play any horror games yet.
How did I obtain this map?
As a solo developer, most of my time has gone into the actual development of, one: the multiplayer programming, two: the actual gameplay and the anomaly logic, and three: actually preparing and making the anomaly content within the levels. (Note: I am a programmer, not much of an artist. So programmers like me who are solo devs usually resort to purchasing 3D assets to make up for the lack of 3D modelling skills).
As many solo developers do, we use game engines and their marketplaces on which we can purchase 3D assets that speed up our development.
For this game, I use Unreal Engine 5, and its corresponding marketplace to buy game assets on, is https://www.fab.com/
FAB has millions of Unreal Engine users, and is one of the biggest asset marketplaces on the planet. Over the past 5 years I have bought and used many of these assets with great succes. In both this game for example, for the other maps, and in my previous Steam games. I always use these assets in such a way that I make my own unique experiences with them. (Thats always my intention, to make fun and unique games.)
But this time it turned out I actually purchased an asset, that after the fact turned out to be a wayyy to close copy of a map from a game released back in 2013. (You guys told me once you played the map via comments on my Youtube map trailer, thanks to all of you who immediatly notified me of this.)
Here is the asset I purchased from the FAB marketplace which I used as the base for my level:
https://www.fab.com/listings/3a4b1f47-9eee-4392-b2a8-23afa271c792?lang=en
The asset released on FAB on August 8, 2022.
And here is the artist, who claimed to have originally made the asset. As it states on his ArtStation account, he wrote: 'All location and objects were created from scratch.':
https://www.fab.com/sellers/Daniel%20Dyatchin
This is such a super unfortunate situation. As a buyer on the FAB marketplace, you should be able to assume that the assets you purchase are okay to use in your games. At first glance, he seemed like a reputable seller to me, but he completely failed to disclose anywhere that the level he made was completely based on a level from another game (Outlast). Not once or anywhere did he note even that this map was inspired by that game.
What did I do as soon as I found out:
Please note, I have spent months on making this level, and have had lots and lots of requests for this map. So I was so happy to be able to finally release it to you guys.
With lots of pain, as soon as I found out I have immediatly removed the map from the game, and any associated Steam page assets (Screenshots, the trailer, newspost etc).
I am now also in the process of reporting the marketplace asset from the FAB marketplace and reporting the seller.
I am totally against infringing on original IP of any games, and would have never spent my months creating this map, all to have to remove it 3 days after release.
Keep in mind, I planned to make this map my big event, and even planned to release the game out of Early Access parallel to releasing this map, which I did on Friday. So it's really unfortunate and my 1.0 release has now been truely ruined all because of this. Besides that I am afraid I might face serious legal consequences due to this as well. All simply because I purchased an assets which turned out to be a copy of a game from 2013 which I had no clue about.
This has been an enormous waste of energy and I apologize dearly to those of you who have long awaited the map, and hope you can understand that this is unfortunatly a very very very unlucky situation that I could not have foreseen.
Moving forward however, I will not be buying any assets off of marketplaces in the future. This could have happened to any developer. We simply can't have played every game on earth, especially games from more than a decade ago. A developer should safely be able to purchase game assets knowing they are in their right to use them. It also specifically states this in the FAB marketplace Terms. Asset uploaders are not allowed to upload assets they have no original IP over, so how this could have happened and why he was allowed to even sell, and to this day still sell that asset on the marketplace is unclear to me.
To those of you who specifically purchased the game for this map, I recommend refunding the game as I won't be able to include this map for the reasons states above. And as making a new map will most likely take me a few months again.
Other than the above, I have no words for the situation and hope to have informed you properly of the situation.
Thanks to all of you who have supported me so long, and to all of you who have notified me of this immediatly. If it was not for you I would have never known.
The developer,
Kekdot