I'm a dev who has been working on my game for 2 years and my game title got stolen on Steam and they plan to release before I do. What should I do?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

I have been working for over 2 years on my game and 4 months ago I finally released my demo. Yesterday, while searching on Steam I found a game with EXACTLY the same title and very similar premise. The page was created in May or June 2026 and they aim to release in August 2026. Here are some of descriptions I use on my Steam page:

A first-person psychological thriller with a heavy atmosphere and elements of liminal horror.
Uncover the stories of your subjects by studying their personal items and darkest secrets before making life-or-death choices.
Will you sacrifice your own beliefs to obey HIS authority?

For comparison here is how they describe their game:

“Will you obey orders, or resist? In this first-person psychological horror game, you sit across from subjects and must investigate evidence to determine who is telling the truth, and decide their fate.”

My game is planned to release in October or whenever it’s completely playtested and polished. I’m not sure what I can do as this has never happened before, what do you think is my best course of action here?

For reference my game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2719670/The_Milgram_Experiment

And the copy: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4777470/The_Milgram_Experiment/

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Comments

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eleijeep@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
See if anyone else in the game dev community has experienced this kind of thing before. If it turns out to be a consistent problem then you could try to get a games journalist involved and see if they will write a story. In order to get anything done about it, you have to make enough noise that it comes to the attention of the people who can actually effect a change.

I’m not sure what the solution is though, because when the base concept is already in the public domain, it’s probably something that happens sometimes through pure coincidence. Like the ant movies. Steam would have to have a set of criteria by which they judge if someone is doing it deliberately and maliciously in order to classify it as fraud or impersonation. If it’s a big enough problem and happens regularly, maybe they would consider it though.

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LouNeko@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I’m surprised that it’s allowed to have 2 games with the same name on steam (I guess their Steam IDs aee different). I wonder how steam handles their directories in the /steams/common folder if they have the same root folder name.

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rtxn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
It’s been adjudicated before: you can’t. It’s the reason PUBG and Fortnite can coexist even though Epic completely ripped off PUBG after helping develop the game. It’s also why the “DOOM clone” genre was allowed to proliferate into the FPS genre, why there are so many FNAF-inspired games, and why Nintendo recently lost one of its Pokémon patents. You don’t own the concept of the Milgram experiment, you don’t own the trademark for the name, and the overall gameplay concept is not subject to copyright. Unless you can prove that the other developer stole code or art assets from you, or that it violated a trademark or patent that you own, there’s nothing you can do but hope that the better product wins in the end.

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- Fizz@lemmy.nz ⁨57⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  how is fortnite a rip off of pubg? That was one of the dumbest lawsuits ever I cant believe people actually repeat that bs.
  
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  - d00ery@lemmy.world ⁨29⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Third person battle royale. Having only ever seen videos of Fortnite the difference is primarily art style.
    
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one_old_coder@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I guess it’s too late to change the name of the game, but when you think about it, the “clone” is a shitty game that won’t get a lot of downloads if any. I’m only a gamer, but your whole Steam page is way more enticing.

You could create a small website with links to the Steam page (and Bluesky and Twitter…) as a reference. The other guy won’t waste more time on his project. I saw your Posts history on Lemmy, and you have a lot of upvotes and conversations about that game, it’s something that the clone guy cannot reproduce easily, he would be roasted very fast if he tried that.

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- Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Thank you for the kind words! Do you mean too late for me to change the name?
  
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  - one_old_coder@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Yes, too late to change the name, but it’s a stupid idea, you have way more momentum and hype than the other guy. Don’t bother about him.
    
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tanisnikana@lemmy.world ⁨39⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I added yours to my wishlist, though I don’t intend to play it cause horror doesn’t sit well with me on account of how I’m a giant wuss but I still support artists, and I put theirs on my ignore list.

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bryndos@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
https://steamcommunity.com/dmca/create

But be warned that it might tie up both games in bureaucracy.
You might hope that steam has the timestamps readily available to prove the sequence of events - though I'm a bit skeptical of cloud storage about that stuff. So you might want your own evidence from your own storage.

It'd be good to try to find someone who has gone through it on steam, and of course a lawyer, if you can afford it.

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- Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Hello, I think it’s too early for lawyers and also… way too expensive
  
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EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
All I know is yours actually looks good. Theirs feels like one of those minis where it has 1/10th the heart and the whole fascist democracy ‘be a good citizen’ thing in theirs is trying to tap into something helldivers made popular for a surge and didn’t even do well. I’ll be getting your game when it drops if I can, but theirs isn’t interesting.

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- classic@fedia.io ⁨36⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  fr. the difference in quality is stark
  
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- Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Wow, thank you for the support! Yes, I mean I’ve been thinking about my game’s premise for like 3 years, created a prototype and steam page 2 years ago and the demo dropped early this year. Hell, I’m still writing the script and re-writing the story even now. I’m just bummer that some people might search for the game if they found my trailer on some festival or something and then have this one show up…
  
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frank@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Let me just say your game looks awesome and I look forward to its release.

I think you should report it to steam, you’ve surely had a page with that name for longer. I wouldn’t change your game name now

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- Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Thank you! Yeah I’ve just found out and I am trying to think about the situation from all POVs. I haven’t contacted Steam or the dev yet… I will update if I do
  
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SynonymousStoat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
You could maybe make a trademark complaint against them if you have been using the name of your game publically before they have, which from your steam page already existing I would assume you’ve been using it publicly for at least a little while now. As to how you would go about making such a complaint, I don’t know what to do other than talking with a lawyer if Steam doesn’t have any sort of option. This all assumes you live in the USA, if you’re in another country different options may or may not exist.

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- toofpic@lemmy.world ⁨59⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  The trademark question is the strongest - the name can absolutely be protected, especially if there are multiple timestamps everywhere (you posting about it, git, steam, your assets with the game’s name, whatever).
  If your game was in some developer’s area on Steam for a long time, just go and write to them right now, explaining the stolen name situation. If it’s not like this, the name issue can be resolved in court in your favour, and you have a case.
  But speaking of the game mechanics, story, or anything like that, it’s hard or impossible to prove anything, so you can only rely on your game being better and attracting more people. You do what you do, and the “thief” will give up eventually
  
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  - Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world ⁨33⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Thank you! Yeah I don’t think I have the right to complain about similar gameplay. Let them do what they do, It was just interesting how similar it sounds, but having the exact same name is a problem. I was just in an indie fest and someone might see my trailer but then find their game instead. This is the part that I don’t like
    
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- Road_Warrior_10@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I love in Europe and the other guy, by his accent in his game trailer is in the USA
  
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