It was two weeks ago when we reported that Void War had been DMCA’d by a party claiming to be Games Workshop. Now, we can confirm that it was indeed Games Workshop that filed the Void War DMCA as Tundra Interactive has told us more about this story, and how Void War is back up on Steam now.
After failing to communicate with Tundra Interactive for a week, Games Workshop finally replied, and confirmed that the Void War DMCA was on their behalf. That means that Games Workshop does employ a lawyer named Mal Reynolds, despite how unlikely that seemed, and it is a deeply ironic name given the Firefly character with the same name. Tundra Interactive explains what issue Games Workshop had with Void War:
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 “the oversized convex shoulder pads with a metallic rim.”
Tundra Interactive emphasizes that all the artwork in the trailer for Void War was original work created by their artists. Despite that, in the goal of a fast resolution, they have removed the story trailer that had the offending image. With that done, they were able to get the game back up on Steam. Tundra Interactive stated, “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.” saying that new versions of the trailer may come.
It is possible to view the trailer via a link from SteamDB which has an image at 34 seconds which match the description given by Games Workshop, as well as confirmed by Tundra Interactive that it is the offending image.
Games Workshop has a history of being… very protective of its IP, dating back to actions like trying to trademark the term Space Marine, to the contentious relationship with fans over things like fan animations that they took steps to ban.
We previously reached out to Games Workshop, but they did not reply regarding whether they had filed the DMCA against Tundra Interactive.
Hopefully, all’s well that ends well and Tundra Interactive can get back to making their game without further legal hurdles. Void War is available on Steam and also on Itch.Io, which will also provide a Steam key.