Dev slams Activision for pulling game from Steam over allegedly stolen art assets

Indie studio Trek Industries has criticised Activision after the publisher successfully removed open-world title Orion from Steam over reportedly stolen assets.

Trek’s David James posted an update to another of Trek’s games on Steam, saying that Orion was delisted as the result of a DMCA takedown request from Activision.

According to James, Activision “alleges that the game Orion uses weapon art content from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare”.

"The weapon art in question includes the M8A7 rifle, the Haymaker rifle, and the Bal-27 rifle,” it added.

James subsequently posted images of the weapon models mentioned in order to dismiss the accusations.

However, commenters on the Steam post uploaded their own comparison shots of the assets from Orion and Call of Duty, highlighting possible similarities between the gun models. User Mirin Dajo claimed: “These are literally the same models, only dismantled and spread out a bit.”

James responded to the suggestions in a YouTube comment, admitting: “The sight is the only similarity we can see.”

“Even if it was a 1:1, that’s not enough for a design infraction, even by legal standards and by a significant amount,” he continued. “And the sight is just a futuristic M1 Garand, so either way both are ripping off a real world property, the only thing that could actually hold up and is the only one without a dog in this fight.”

James called the move “extremely serious”, highlighting the timing of the takedown during Steam’s summer sales event as particularly damaging for the studio. Orion will be offline for a period of 10 days.

“We’ve made Steam our primary platform, but this has put a definite scare into us going forward considering our entire livelihood can be pulled without a moments notice, without any warning or proper verification,” he said.