A South Korean court has ruled that Dark and Darker developer Ironmace did not commit copyright infringement against Nexon, according to a Korea Times report. But Ironmace is going to have to fork over some bucks anyway, because the court also ruled that it did infringe on Nexon's trade secrets.
Dark and Darker, a fantasy PvPvE extraction game, made a big splash when it first appeared in early 2023, even though it was in a pretty rough alpha state at the time. Before long, though, Nexon started making noise about it, accusing Ironmace of using "stolen" code and assets to build the game. Nexon was reportedly working on a similar project, codenamed P3, but pulled the plug on it in 2021; Ironmace was founded shortly thereafter by former Nexon employees.
