<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nFollowing the takedown, IGN asked Tundra Interactive for comment, and it responded with something quite unusual. It said that it had received a takedown notice from Valve stating that Games Workshop itself had claimed copyright infringement. But here\u2019s what made this one odd: the claiming information came from Games Workshop\u2019s public-facing infringements inbox and the name \u201cMal Reynolds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mal Reynolds is a name that will be instantly familiar to Firefly \/ Serenity fans, because that\u2019s the name of the main character, played by Nathan Fillion, in the beloved but short-lived sci-fi show. At the time, it was thought that it was unlikely that Games Workshop would have someone on its books named Mal Reynolds. But, well, it turns out Games Workshop really was behind the takedown, according to Tundra Interactive.<\/p>\n
Tundra Interactive told IGN that Games Workshop eventually replied to the developer to confirm it was their notice, and that the concern was limited to a specific shot from one of the trailers on the Steam store page that it said could give the impression that Void War was associated with Games Workshop. The company specified that the element in question was \u201cthe oversized convex shoulder pads with a metallic rim.\u201d And, well, yeah, that Void War trailer did indeed have an image of a character who looked a lot like a Space Marine, complete with “oversized convex shoulder pads with a metallic rim.”<\/p>\n
This isn’t a Space Marine, it’s a character from Void War. Or, was.<\/p>\n
Tundra Interactive told IGN that it disagreed with Games Workshop’s assessment here, but in order to get Void War back on Steam and to avoid a drawn out DMCA fight, it pulled the trailer. It may re-upload it in the future after making an adjustment, but its priority is getting back to work on Void War, the developer insisted. And, to that end, Void War is now back on Steam.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s Tundra Interactive\u2019s statement in full to IGN:<\/p>\n
To recap, the initial takedown was triggered by a DMCA notice attributed to Games Workshop. At the time, we could not independently verify the submitter beyond the name and contact email Valve included. The contact email was GW’s public infringements inbox, and the name listed was \u201cMal Reynolds,\u201d which is also a fictional character from the sci-fi TV show Firefly.After over a week of no response, Games Workshop eventually replied to our email and confirmed the notice was theirs. They said their concern was limited to a specific shot from one of the trailers on the store page, arguing that certain elements could create the mistaken impression that Void War is associated with Games Workshop, specifically what they described as \u201cthe oversized convex shoulder pads with a metallic rim.\u201dAll of the artwork in the trailer is original work created by our artists. While we disagree with their assessment, the simplest way to get the game back up and avoid getting bogged down in DMCA process was to remove that trailer and move on. We may re-upload an updated version later after we find time to adjust that shot, but for now our priority is shipping content and finishing multi-language font support so we can finally deliver proper translations.Thanks for your patience, and thank you for the overwhelming support. o7 commanders.<\/p>\n
All\u2019s well that ends well? Perhaps. Certainly this case shows that Games Workshop and \u201cMal Reynolds,\u201d who I\u2019d love to meet one day, are keeping a close eye on video game characters and their shoulder pads. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise, given Games Workshop’s history of stringent IP protection. Be warned! The Inquisition is always watching.<\/p>\n
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It turns out the \u201cMal Reynolds\u201d who issued Steam game Void War with a DMCA takedown was not a troll who also happened to be a huge fan of Firefly. It was actually Warhammer 40,000 owner Games Workshop, which took issue with an image of a shoulder pad. Last month, IGN reported on Void War,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4038,1764,2703,4033,206,77,4032,4041,4037,4040,4042,4039,4035,343,4036,4034,4031],"class_list":{"0":"post-4479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news","8":"tag-convex","9":"tag-dev","10":"tag-dmca","11":"tag-ftl","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-games","14":"tag-issued","15":"tag-metallic","16":"tag-oversized","17":"tag-pads","18":"tag-rim","19":"tag-shoulder","20":"tag-skin","21":"tag-steam","22":"tag-takedown","23":"tag-warhammer","24":"tag-workshop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}