LogInSteelkrill had to seek legal help after someone copied their game from Steam and uploaded it to the console stores.
On Steam, you'll find numerous Backrooms games, all sharing a similar setting but varying in subtle ways, solidifying their place as a significant part of the horror genre. Steelkrill's The Backrooms 1998 debuted last week with a strong reception, taking a more story-focused approach and following the story of a young teen who accidentally falls into the depths of The Backrooms in 1998.
Everything went smoothly: with the help of Steelkrill's publisher, The Backrooms 1998 was released on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. The solo developer was thrilled until someone pointed out that the game was already there under the name Backrooms Horror Escape. "Long story short," the developer wrote in their detailed Reddit post, "this company called 'COOL DEVS S.R.L' stole my whole game, ripped it, pasted some bad AI crap on it as a cover, literally made a BAD version of it and just published it on consoles and sold it to trick players into buying it".
Steelkrill believes The Backrooms 1998 was stolen using a program that then decompiled all the assets, including the voice lines from the hired voice actor:
Here is a detailed comparison below:
Steelkrill suspects that a questionable publisher who reached out last year to publish The Backrooms 1998 on consoles was involved. After declining their offer, Steelkrill noticed that the publisher had a portfolio of games quite similar to those from the fake company.
Currently, the developer has filed a DMCA request to have the game removed from the stores. It has been taken down from PlayStation and Xbox, but unfortunately, it's still available on the Nintendo Store. Steelkrill encourages everyone to report the fake game Backrooms Horror Escape, and if you accidentally purchased it, please try to request a refund.
To minimize the risk of similar scams, Steelkrill advises other developers to use IL2CPP and encourages players to double-check both games and developer accounts before making a purchase. If you'd like to know more, you can check out this detailed video on the situation by SwitchStars:
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