Paradox Of Hope Is Yet Another Indie Game Destroyed By A Copyright Claim

Unfortunately the fantastic indie survival shooter game Paradox Of Hope is no longer available for purchase, and will not be receiving updates from its singular developer anymore. Why? The usual reason, a copyright claim from a larger company.

Here we’ll go over the details of this latest copyright claim, and talk a little about what this means for you and your access to games that you would enjoy.

The Paradox Of Hope Copyright Claim and Details

Let’s start with what we know about this. Most of what we know comes from this Discord post by the only developer working on Paradox of hope, NikZ.

NikZ breaking the news of Paradox Of Hope’s shutdown

The summary is that his game is being taken down due to a copyright claim and will not be available for purchase, or receive any more development updates. For a single developer working on a game with as much ambition as Paradox Of Hope, NikZ had been making great progress in a very short amount of time.

Paradox Of Hope featured not only a singleplayer campaign three chapters long, but an endless “Raid” mode that was also seeing constant changes and improvements. Recently NikZ added bandit enemies, new weapons, and a laundry list of improvements to this mode while he was adding campaign content.

The pace of development makes sense, as Paradox Of Hope was his full time job and only source of income. A project in the making of four years of his life, it’s hard to imagine what a disappointment losing that much time and effort must feel like.

Consistent updates by the Paradox Of Hope Developer

NikZ’s claim that Paradox Of Hope uses no specific assets or lore from another piece of copyright protected media is accurate. Anyone looking at this might draw the conclusion that, of course, the Metro series of games is clearly the copied IP here.

Paradox Of Hope does look a lot like a Metro game. It has a similar setting, similar enemies, and similar game mechanics to the first two Metro games, Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. It takes place in a post apocalyptic series of metro tunnels, and is set in Russia.

It’s likely that the copyright claimer holds the Metro series IP. Due to the similarities between Paradox Of Hope and the Metro games in setting and gameplay, you might think that there is some merit to this copyright claim.

Did Paradox Of Hope Copy Metro?

The thing is though… a setting and gameplay elements aren’t copyrightable. Paradox Of Hope does bear striking similarities, but in ways that aren’t subject to copyright protection.

Of course you can reasonably claim that the opposite is true and the claim is valid. Copyright law can be hard to interpret, especially as a non legally trained observer without access to any of the legal documents pertaining to this claim.

That’s what courts are for, to decide if the law in a specific case is validly being applied. Whether or not Paradox Of Hope is being shut down justifiably or not, that’s what is so sad here. This game and its developer will likely never see their day in court to get a more thorough ruling, why? The same reason as always, money.

Court cases are expensive, and NikZ is a single person that is not a lawyer. Fighting a copyright claim is expensive, and one person can’t match the resources that whatever large company is doing this claim has. So the only option is to fold.

Fighting a mutant spider in Paradox Of Hope

What this amounts to is bullying. It’s doubtful that an official Metro VR game is even being developed, but it’s easy for a larger entity with a lot of resources to shut down a small developer who might take a little bit of their fanbase away. Much easier than actually making a competing product to compete fairly in the market.

So that’s the repercussion for you, the gamer, the consumer. Copyright claims like this mean less independent developers that can make games for a living without being subjected to the whims of large publishers. This means less great independent games like Paradox Of Hope, which many will no longer be able to enjoy.

So, fewer passionate people making games, and fewer games you can buy and play if you like them. Especially in the VR gaming space, this hurts, as many of the greatest VR games are made by independent developers. Even if there is a Metro VR game in a few years, wouldn’t you rather have both Paradox Of Hope and an official Metro VR title?

Frivolous copyright claims that are tough for a small development organization to combat are a trend lately, just like with the noteable case of Nexon vs Ironmace, where ex Nexon employees who formed their own company were threatened with arrest by the much richer Nexon. Luckily Ironmace has so far beaten this claim and has released their game, Dark and Darker, in early access with great success.

There’s also the case of the GTA V VR mod being taken down by Take-Two Interactive that we covered here.

So that’s that, another game with great potential demolished in the name of squashing the competition while they’re still small. It seems that games featuring a Russian post apocalypse in underground metro tunnels with mutants are now illegal. Unless you have the resources to win a court case that is.