Stalker developer GSC Game World issues DMCA takedown against indie game Misery

The Steam page for indie survival horror shooter Misery is now offline following a DMCA copyright strike filed by GSC Game World, the developers behind the Stalker franchise, with the game's solo developer calling the action "an abuse of power against small independent developers by a large corporation."

The details:

• On Friday, Misery's developer, Maewing, posted to the game's Steam community hub that GSC Game World had reported the game to Valve for "use of [its] game content without [its] authorization." The email from Valve included screenshots showing similar scenes from both games, including imagery of survivors with gas masks playing guitar by a campfire and a wider shot of a Soviet-era city.  "GSC Game World attacked Misery with a DMCA strike, and the store page is now suspended, so you cannot buy the game at the moment," the post reads. "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."
• Maewing has disputed the claims, arguing that "Misery uses no characters, plot, storyline, assets, monsters, music, code, etc., from their games" and that the game was inspired by multiple sources, including movies and books, not just the Stalker series. The developer noted that GSC's own games draw heavily from the novel Roadside Picnic and Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker film, adding that they "do not own the copyright on depressive Soviet-era buildings, playing guitar, vodka, radiation, or abandoned locations."
• However, the developer’s reaction on Discord was considerably less civil, with screenshots posted to Reddit showing Maewing targeting GSC with insults and slurs in response to the strike. The creator has since edited the messages and apologized for the language used, asking players to avoid attacking the studio.
• GSC Game World has not yet publicly commented on the DMCA strike, so it is currently unknown what exactly prompted the studio to take action against Misery aside from some of its striking similarities to Stalker. Some fans note that past messages on the game’s Discord server, including some from Maewing, include support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which may have influenced GSC’s decision as a Ukrainian developer. It’s also been claimed that some assets from Stalker may have been used in Misery without permission.