Why the MMO "Project Genom" was removed ((FINAL NOTE))

[MickeyDankMouse]

Why the MMO "Project Genom" was removed from Steam
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/5eehi0/why_the_mmo_project_genom_was_removed_from_steam/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

[MickeyDankMouse]

I copied and pasted what the dev stated on Reddit about the situation
——
“Why the MMO "Project Genom" was removed from Steam

Posted a thread in another sub a few days ago, asking how to contact Steam regarding a DMCA claim I made: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/5dlclk/dmca_claim_status_report/

Following up on that DMCA claim, the game got taken down from Steam a couple of hours ago. I don't know if it's the correct subreddit for this information, but I'll try to post it here and we'll see how it goes.
 

The story is old as the world. TL;DR: the project lead is from Russia and he scammed me out of my 10% revenue shares. But was stupid enough not to sign any contracts with me, which makes me the sole author of 90% of game code according to both US and Russian law. And so since I’m the author of this intellectual property being used in a game without my permission, Steam took the game down.
 

If you care for a longer version, I’m not sure it’s particularly interesting, but here it is anyway:
 

To start off, I live in Belgium and am a Belgian citizen (which will complicate matters later). In January 2015, I was contacted by this indie Russian guy who was making an MMO on a self-written engine. Impressed by UE4, he asked if I could make an MMO like the one he was making. Lucky for him, I was the author of a UE4 MMO Kit, which is a good starting point if you’re making an MMO. So I said sure, let’s do it.
 

It was quickly recognized by both parties that he was unable to pay me a normal European/US wage, so we settled for something else – he pays me $1000 per month, and I also own 10% of game revenues. Sounds ok if you’re an indie enthusiast.
 

Half a year later, we went on Steam Greenlight and we get accepted within 4 days. The game shapes up quite well.
 

Early this year, we received an unprecedented Epic Games grant in the amount of $19’000. Of which I was paid 10% of course. All goes as planned.
 

October 12 this year, we release Project Genom on Early Access. In the first 3 days, we make over $230’000, which exceeds by far everything we have received before through preorders, etc. The next day I get informed I’ll receive nothing for my efforts. The reason: simple, I didn’t work enough in September, so I’m “fired”. The 10% I’m owed will go towards the next programmer, I’m informed.
 

Of course, since we concluded no contracts, I’m actually the sole author of the [intellectual property that constitutes 90% of the game code]
Interesting fact, of which I inform the project lead Ilya Usanov. I also have a ton of proofs that I’m the author of the code, since I was sending code updates over the internet (through version control) for 2 years. He realizes it, gets worked up and starts spamming me with SMS’s and Skype messages. Suddenly, he wants me to sign a contract through which I transfer all my copyrights to him in exchange for what constitutes 10% of October’s sales. Alright, I’m game, I accept immediately.
 

In the next week, we draw up a contract. Then he says he needs to translate it to English. Sounds good. I wait for the English version… and then wait… and then wait some more. Three weeks later, I inform NeuronHaze that by the end of the week, I’m done waiting and I’m submitting a DMCA claim to Steam. The project lead reappears a few days later, mildly interested, but not much. He says what I’m doing constitutes blackmail and I must cease it immediately, or as he put it “you’ll get nothing”. Furthermore, according to him, I must wait until November 30 to sign any contract, because he’s “not currently working on the Project until that date”. That actually shows, considering there’s been no updates on Steam for 4 weeks now. But funnily enough, this is the exact date when Steam is going to wire over $350’000 to NeuronHaze. What a coincidence.
 

Anyway, like I said I would, I file a DMCA claim to Steam. I was having some difficulties with it initially, so I posted a question here on reddit about how to contact Steam, because I wasn’t getting any reaction from Steam.
Some people figure out what project I’m talking about here and post on Project Genom’s forums. Project lead is furious. Sends me threats that he will contact Russian authorities, because I was involved in “blackmail”, “fraud”, and he “will contact Interpol and Belgian embassy in Russia”. I kid you not, this is verbatim. He also said they’re preparing a press conference “to expose me in the press” on some Russian comic-con style event.
 

A few hours ago, game gets removed from Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/389040/Project_Genom/

I don’t know whether the money is “frozen” by Steam or not. I hope it is, because otherwise the guy will cash it all out and walk away. It’s not like he cares about the game at this point, considering that right after release he’s “not working on the project”. Also fun fact, right when we were drawing up our contract, he asked to change the amount from 10% of October sales to a fixed amount, because, as he said, “they would invest a significant amount of money into marketing”. Good to know that he’s not actually spending money on working on the game, but rather on marketing it. That’s really great.
 

Anyway, that’s the story I got for you. Feel free to call me an idiot for not signing any contracts :) It was my first experience developing a full game, we started off slowly, nobody expected to release anything 2 years down the road when we didn't have anything, so yeah, nobody was thinking about contracts. Don't repeat my mistakes :)
I wish I could tell my family and friends I made this game, but I can't even do that, because they'd ask how much money I made off this game, etc, leading to this uncomfortable situation.
 

Anyway, that’s all of my story I think.”

[MickeyDankMouse]

This was the post that was made on Reddit, I’ll post the text from the other link as well (for those that don’t like to click things but still get the info)

[MickeyDankMouse]

“DMCA Claim status report?

Hi.
 

There's an enormous chunk of my intellectual property being used in a game without my permission.
 

Naturally I filed a DMCA claim 2 days ago using steam's DMCA page. I've received no email notifications acknowledging the reception of my claim, and I haven't heard back since. I don't know if it's being reviewed or has been dismissed, and I don't even know if they received it for that matter.
 

I can't go to steamworks developer forum, because I've been cut off from steamworks by the very person who scammed me. I'm no longer affiliated with his "company", so I'm suddenly no longer a dev, even though 2 years worth of my work are being used in a game illegally.
 

Valve lists around 50 emails of their employees, none of whom are in the legal department. Steam support and Partner support lists all sorts of question categories, but none of which pertain to the legal matters in general or copyright matters in particular.
 

At this point, I have literally no idea how to contact Steam in a correct way any more.
 

Any help?
 

*** Update ***

I got a response from a Steam representative in regards to my ticket on Steamworks, they'll try to find out about the claim status. Very relieved someone answered.”

[MickeyDankMouse]

Again I want to reiterate, these are NOT my words, they are copy and pasted from the Reddit post directly. So people wouldn’t have to click the link (thought I’d at least attempt to try and summarize the sad demise of Project Genome) hope one day there will be more on this topic, but until then…this unfortunately is the final details we get about how the game ended up.

[MickeyDankMouse]

I’ll try to bump this post every once in a while in hopes it can help people find out faster what became of the Game and the Company.

[.]

Thread is 4 years old tho lmao

[MickeyDankMouse]

At least someone took the time to read it lol

[ML]

Crummy luck pal.

[MickeyDankMouse]

Yea I know, it sucks big time, at least we got a finalized post from one of the devs.

[anonbc2000]

No that linked reddit is not at all why this game is Now removed from steam.
Steam locked down PG & for a few days no one could buy a copy back in 2016.

That reddit post is by Artem Stehnovsky (aliases: CodeSpartan) and he filed a DMCA against this game which got it locked. He also posted a topic here that was much the same as the reddit story but that topic is long since removed.
Basically Neuronhaze side of this story is they had correspondence disputing Artem's claim and apparently showed an attempt at blackmail too.
Irregardless they took him to court and within a few days later PG was back on sale.
Note: if Neuronhaze only filed a counter claim to the DMCA then PG would've been offlined for at least 10 days. Why unlocked so fast? We don't know, so either Artem released his claim, or Neuronhaze held legal proof, eitherway ancient history sort of......


The New Project Genom in 2018
https://mmos.com/games/project-genom
Days before Christmas in Dec 2016 Neuronhaze announces a complete overhaul of game and expansion to make it 10 times bigger.
(I believe they wanted to remove anything Artem might've coded for various reasons.)
As I recall Neuronhaze finally posted a massive update in late-summer of 2018 and they had done a lot. They re-coded a lot and redid some artwork and completely changed a fair bit of the world design and missions. But there was bugs and the servers were janky or some part of the networking code wasn't working correctly, there was a couple attempts to patch as I recall.
But eitherway within a few months Neuronhaze went silent and eventually admitted they overspent and tried to reach too far with the redoing everything and trying to expand game size at same time and that the company was no more.
Even after that Steam still took way too long to stop people from buying PG.

In my experience the scam game companies never actually improve the game, much less remake everything from scratch as good or better then before and then release it.

[MickeyDankMouse]

Ahhh okay didn't know the whole picture, thanks for going MORE in depth! Thanks mate!

[MickeyDankMouse]

RIP

[anonbc2000]

Originally posted by MickeyDankMouse:

Ahhh okay didn't know the whole picture, thanks for going MORE in depth! Thanks mate!

I tried to stick to the facts, both sides said a lot of stuff and I dunno whats what.
I just know other games with DMCA get locked down for weeks.
Also I took a chance and got this game before all of that happened.
I should point out that for 2 years devs would just posted screenshots of their work on the new PG and I was vocal about them being scammers.

The day they updated the game in 2018 and I installed it I was absolutely Stunned.
Just wish either version was still available cause I actually enjoyed it.

[cocaroto]

Originally posted by MickeyDankMouse:

I copied and pasted what the dev stated on Reddit about the situation
——
“Why the MMO "Project Genom" was removed from Steam

Posted a thread in another sub a few days ago, asking how to contact Steam regarding a DMCA claim I made: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/5dlclk/dmca_claim_status_report/

Following up on that DMCA claim, the game got taken down from Steam a couple of hours ago. I don't know if it's the correct subreddit for this information, but I'll try to post it here and we'll see how it goes.
 

The story is old as the world. TL;DR: the project lead is from Russia and he scammed me out of my 10% revenue shares. But was stupid enough not to sign any contracts with me, which makes me the sole author of 90% of game code according to both US and Russian law. And so since I’m the author of this intellectual property being used in a game without my permission, Steam took the game down.
 

If you care for a longer version, I’m not sure it’s particularly interesting, but here it is anyway:
 

To start off, I live in Belgium and am a Belgian citizen (which will complicate matters later). In January 2015, I was contacted by this indie Russian guy who was making an MMO on a self-written engine. Impressed by UE4, he asked if I could make an MMO like the one he was making. Lucky for him, I was the author of a UE4 MMO Kit, which is a good starting point if you’re making an MMO. So I said sure, let’s do it.
 

It was quickly recognized by both parties that he was unable to pay me a normal European/US wage, so we settled for something else – he pays me $1000 per month, and I also own 10% of game revenues. Sounds ok if you’re an indie enthusiast.
 

Half a year later, we went on Steam Greenlight and we get accepted within 4 days. The game shapes up quite well.
 

Early this year, we received an unprecedented Epic Games grant in the amount of $19’000. Of which I was paid 10% of course. All goes as planned.
 

October 12 this year, we release Project Genom on Early Access. In the first 3 days, we make over $230’000, which exceeds by far everything we have received before through preorders, etc. The next day I get informed I’ll receive nothing for my efforts. The reason: simple, I didn’t work enough in September, so I’m “fired”. The 10% I’m owed will go towards the next programmer, I’m informed.
 

Of course, since we concluded no contracts, I’m actually the sole author of the [intellectual property that constitutes 90% of the game code]
Interesting fact, of which I inform the project lead Ilya Usanov. I also have a ton of proofs that I’m the author of the code, since I was sending code updates over the internet (through version control) for 2 years. He realizes it, gets worked up and starts spamming me with SMS’s and Skype messages. Suddenly, he wants me to sign a contract through which I transfer all my copyrights to him in exchange for what constitutes 10% of October’s sales. Alright, I’m game, I accept immediately.
 

In the next week, we draw up a contract. Then he says he needs to translate it to English. Sounds good. I wait for the English version… and then wait… and then wait some more. Three weeks later, I inform NeuronHaze that by the end of the week, I’m done waiting and I’m submitting a DMCA claim to Steam. The project lead reappears a few days later, mildly interested, but not much. He says what I’m doing constitutes blackmail and I must cease it immediately, or as he put it “you’ll get nothing”. Furthermore, according to him, I must wait until November 30 to sign any contract, because he’s “not currently working on the Project until that date”. That actually shows, considering there’s been no updates on Steam for 4 weeks now. But funnily enough, this is the exact date when Steam is going to wire over $350’000 to NeuronHaze. What a coincidence.
 

Anyway, like I said I would, I file a DMCA claim to Steam. I was having some difficulties with it initially, so I posted a question here on reddit about how to contact Steam, because I wasn’t getting any reaction from Steam.
Some people figure out what project I’m talking about here and post on Project Genom’s forums. Project lead is furious. Sends me threats that he will contact Russian authorities, because I was involved in “blackmail”, “fraud”, and he “will contact Interpol and Belgian embassy in Russia”. I kid you not, this is verbatim. He also said they’re preparing a press conference “to expose me in the press” on some Russian comic-con style event.
 

A few hours ago, game gets removed from Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/389040/Project_Genom/

I don’t know whether the money is “frozen” by Steam or not. I hope it is, because otherwise the guy will cash it all out and walk away. It’s not like he cares about the game at this point, considering that right after release he’s “not working on the project”. Also fun fact, right when we were drawing up our contract, he asked to change the amount from 10% of October sales to a fixed amount, because, as he said, “they would invest a significant amount of money into marketing”. Good to know that he’s not actually spending money on working on the game, but rather on marketing it. That’s really great.
 

Anyway, that’s the story I got for you. Feel free to call me an idiot for not signing any contracts :) It was my first experience developing a full game, we started off slowly, nobody expected to release anything 2 years down the road when we didn't have anything, so yeah, nobody was thinking about contracts. Don't repeat my mistakes :)
I wish I could tell my family and friends I made this game, but I can't even do that, because they'd ask how much money I made off this game, etc, leading to this uncomfortable situation.
 

Anyway, that’s all of my story I think.”

Hearing this gives me a small hint of a new hope, but is there a chance that this project can be continued by a legit publisher that know what they are doing. I feel there is enough here to either a. let a developer finish the project b. give the source code to the community and hope it salvage this game in some way.

[AIbandit]

Originally posted by cocaroto:

Hearing this gives me a small hint of a new hope, but is there a chance that this project can be continued by a legit publisher that know what they are doing. I feel there is enough here to either a. let a developer finish the project b. give the source code to the community and hope it salvage this game in some way.

Any hope is definitely misplaced, the assets we paid for were used on a BR game that sold on Epic.
They got their money, twice. We got boned because they wanted to scam a dev.