When we last caught up with Japanese indie developer Daikichi_EMP one week ago, his demo for the upcoming anime-style 3D climbing game WIRED TOKYO 2007 was stuck in Steam review limbo over suspected infringement of third-party intellectual property, but thankfully, Valve and Daikichi reached a solution on the 9th, and the demo is cleared for release.
To give some background, WIRED TOKYO 2007’s in-game environments and store page assets feature references to the board games Second Best and DinoStone, which led to Daikichi_EMP’s demo being flagged by Valve’s reviewers as a potential unauthorized IP violation. The catch is, these games were created and belong to the developer himself, but he had no way of proving it. His explanation to Valve was met with a rejection, with the reviewers requesting more substantial proof, such as license agreements to the IPs, or a “legal opinion from their attorney analyzing the intellectual property issues and explaining why they don’t need licenses.”
Being an indie developer with a limited budget, Daikichi could not afford to hire an attorney just to get his demo approved, which left him in a pickle. However, it seems his attempt to make a homebrew document was successful. “I’ve passed Steam review!,” he reported on May 9. “Licensing negotiations with myself have been quite challenging, but we’ve finally settled the matter, with me granting myself a license. After a heartfelt handshake between me and myself, I’ve finally released the demo.”
Tongue-in-cheek remarks aside, Daikichi_EMP has expressed gratitude to Steam for their flexible support, and has shared a screenshot of the DIY license declaration he put together to overcome the issue in case other developers find themselves in a similar predicament.
In the document, signed under his real name, he declares that he is the person behind both the developer name “Daikichi_EMP” and the board game publishing circle “Board Game Teikoku,” and grants the former “perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive rights” to all of the latter’s IPs. The license declaration ends with “I assume full legal responsibility for the inclusion of these motifs in the aforementioned software. I declare under penalty of perjury that the information provided in this document is true and correct to the best of my knowledge,” which seems to have been enough to reassure Valve to green light WIRED TOKYO 2007.
On that note, WIRED TOKYO 2007 is a 3D action game in which you climb a mysterious structure floating above Tokyo, but are at times also required to deliberately fall down in order to progress. The full game is set to launch in 2027, while a free demo is coming soon to Steam.
