Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Indie game developer Ammobox Studios has sent Steam a DMCA takedown notice for its own game. The company says that it was forced to take such a drastic measure after the publisher stopped making payments. While it's an unusual step to take, the takedown notice achieved the desired result.
[...] "Long story short, we had to file a DMCA against our very own game on Steam to wrest it off the Publisher. The DMCA has just kicked in resulting in the game being taken off the Steam Store Page," Ammobox explained.
Both companies had a publishing agreement, but this was breached according to Ammobox, which notes that no payments were made for the sales of their game on Steam. Without a publishing agreement, the publisher would indeed violate the DMCA, transforming the previously legal copy on Steam into a pirate version. While this isn't a typical takedown notice, it certainly had the desired effect.
The game was removed from the store for over a week. While it was no longer for sale, people who previously bought it could still pay it. Then, after nearly two weeks, the developers regained control of their own game, with help from Steam.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday February 05 2019, @08:11PM
Expensive digital retailers who provide no support at all also suck.
Game developers are mostly pretty cool people. Mostly.