Indie dev accused of using stolen FromSoftware animations removes them, warns others against trusting marketplace assets

Authored by pcgamer.com and submitted by CerebralTiger

The makers of the indie soulslike Bleak Faith: Forsaken have removed assets that were allegedly lifted from FromSoftware games (opens in new tab). Archangel Games says Epic Games has now removed the third-party listings from the Unreal Engine marketplace, but it still hasn't told the studio whether or not they were actually stolen.

The similarities were noticed almost immediately after Bleak Faith: Forsaken launched on March 10, and they weren't just kind of alike, they were virtually direct copies. For instance, below is a comparison of the claymore in Bleak Faith and the straight sword in Elden Ring. The positioning and timing is just about dead-on.

Archangel Studios denied the accusations of theft, saying the assets in question were purchased fair and square from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Later, one of the developers added that the team had submitted a ticket about the issue to Epic's customer service.

"We decided to be preemptive as a sign of good faith and a generally very pleased customer at the Epic Marketplace," developer ubermensch42 said on Archangel's Discord. "We'll let you know what they say about it and will respond accordingly."

Today Archangel announced that it received a reply from Epic, but it wasn't terribly informative:

"Pursuant to the Marketplace Distribution Agreement, each Marketplace seller represents and warrants to Epic that they have appropriate rights to upload their content. As with any store that hosts third-party content, however, Epic is not in a position to independently verify such rights, and Epic makes no such guarantee to purchasers of the content."

In other words, Epic either doesn't know or can't say whether the content being sold through the Unreal Engine Marketplace is legal or not: It's entirely dependent upon the seller to be honest about having the rights to legally sell what they offer. At the same time, though, the assets in this case have been removed from the marketplace (opens in new tab), which is what ultimately prompted Archangel to remove them from Bleak Faith: Forsaken.

"[Epic's response] is not satisfactory for us and so we have taken the decision to replace the assets purchased from the store over the next several days," the studio said. "Some changes we included in the recent patches, and more are coming in the next few days. Certainly this has been a huge lesson for us and hopefully other indie creators out there too that assets on these storefronts seemingly cannot be purchased in good faith."

Archangel said in a statement sent to PC Gamer that it removed the questionable assets "out of respect for the original animation artists and the players." Replacing them is currently "an ongoing process," which will also include frequent patches to address buys, balance issues, and feedback from players.

It's an unfortunate situation, but it does appear to fit with Epic's marketplace distribution agreement (opens in new tab), which puts the onus of warranty on the seller and specifically disavows any sort of guarantee on the part of Epic. That seems like a fairly conventional disclaimer to me, but it's a bit odd that Epic would pull the Marketplace seller's content without explanation, especially if the material was found to be in violation of FromSoftware's copyright. Given the sudden removal of the content, it seems like a good bet that it was.

"The team sincerely thanks everyone for bringing the issue to light," Archangel said. "The utilization of stolen assets is unacceptable, and we hope other indie creators won’t ever find themselves caught up in a similar situation. Asset marketplaces are a critical resource for development teams, particularly those on a minimal budget. We hope the proper vetting and review protocols are put into place soon to provide verified assets for creators of all shapes and sizes to use on their upcoming projects."

In response to our inquiry, Epic declined to comment further.

i_lost_waldo on March 15th, 2023 at 20:33 UTC »

There’s a great video someone posted on r/godot forever ago. I can’t find it for the life of me though…

The summary of it is this guy is a game dev with a ton of background in audio engineering, so he knows how to analyze track details at very technical levels. He was able to prove that a large majority of the $5-$15 (loose estimate) sound packs contained stolen assets.

He was able to prove, without a doubt, that these asset packs were indeed taking tracks from large, expensive packs (such as exotic animal soundtrack packs priced at around $500), and breaking them into smaller, cheaper packs that they resell without permission from the original soundtrack pack creators.

Sometimes, the people selling these packs even go as far to pitch-bend in order to mask that the tracks are stolen. But that doesn’t alter the actual wave shape, so you can still tell by comparing tracks to the original - which is what this guy did… and required him to buy the expensive packs AND the fraudulent ones to do the comparison (something most people won’t do since they trust the authority of the asset stores).

It’s really easy to accidentally include stolen assets in your game if you’re buying from any of these asset stores. Make what you can in-house, and don’t skimp on asset expenses, otherwise you might end up having to pay way more in a legal battle.

He summarized it with “if it’s too good to be true, it is.”

EDIT: I should point out that, even if you are cautious, there is no guarantee of safety from any of the asset stores (Unity, Epic, etc.). If you want to guarantee your assets are your own, the only way is to make everything yourself.

nemanjaC92 on March 15th, 2023 at 12:25 UTC »

I wish all the best to the devs. This can help for the future when regarding this sort of problem for Epic. They can maybe start implementing some new rules and have stricter control in the future so the innocent devs like these dont get into trouble because the seller of the legitimate marketplace got the assets in unknown way.

The way they are handling this is very good and transparent. And they are releasing patches much faster than many other type of devs.

Quickerson on March 15th, 2023 at 12:17 UTC »

Epic is not in a position to independently verify such rights, and Epic makes no such guarantee to purchasers of the content.

A.k.a we don't give a shit