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GSC Gameworld, the studio behind the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games has said it will not instigate legal action against West Games, despite the similarities between their games and the latter’s crowdfunded STALKER project.
Ukraine-based studio GSC closed four years ago, but has recently re-opened, according to GamesIndustry.
In their absence, nearby studio West Games has made repeated attempts to crowdfund their own take on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series – originally named Areal, and last month relaunched as STALKER Apocalypse.
West Games claims that it has trademarked STALKER to avoid clashes with S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but legal experts question whether this will hold up.
For the sake of our keyboards and your eyes, we’re going to dispense with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. acronym styling from here on out.
Valentine Yeltyshev, GSC spokesperson and member of the original team, told GI that the newly re-opened studio isn’t planning to pursue legal action against West Games. He also offered more insight into the other developers’ claims about working on the original Stalker titles.
"When we were working on Stalker 2, we were also planning on releasing a browser game based on Stalker so we could keep the audience engaged until released," he explained.
"That project was never finished. There were mistakes. But the guys at West Games, that was the Stalker project they were working on – a flash game.
"So when they promoted themselves as having working on Stalker, I was quite surprised. We would definitely win the legal action against them, but we won’t start it. They used a lot of the ideas from Stalker… I don’t know what they were thinking, starting that. I haven’t heard from them for quite a while."
GSC Gameworld is currently working on an "old fashioned, full price game" that is expected to resonate well with its previous audience.
