Superman UE5 Demo Was Released on Steam Withough the Creator's Consent
Tyson Butler-Boschma, the creator of a playable Superman game prototype, shared that his game was stolen and listed for sale on Steam.
In April, Lead Lighting and Unreal Generalist Tyson Butler-Boschma, also known as TJ ATOMICA, shared a playable Superman game prototype, A Superman Style Flight Experience.
The project was developed on Unreal Engine 5 using Epic Games's The Matrix Awaken's City Sample. To create the game prototype, Butler-Boschma replaced the character with a flying superhero designed using UE Marketplace assets. The game is distributed via itch.io for free.
However, two weeks ago, the developer noticed that his game was placed on Steam. A studio called Hero Game Studios released Butler-Boschma's game on the platform under the name "Heroes City Superman Edition" and sold it for $11.
"On Wednesday morning (2nd November) I was made aware of this game being sold on Steam that uses the Superman Demo mod I made earlier this year," Butler-Boschma wrote in the game's reviews on Steam. "I put it on Itch.io for free for people to enjoy mainly as a proof of concept and now this 'Dev' has downloaded it, somehow got it through Steam certification, and is selling it to people in the Steam Community."
In addition, to trying to sell Butler-Boschma's game, the studio issued a copyright strike on the YouTube video published by the original creator which showcased the game prototype. This resulted in the removal of the video for "copyright infringement" and a strike on the channel.
In the comments to Butler-Boschma's review, Hero Game Studios wrote that Tyson was allegedly on the project development team, but left a long time ago and was unrightfully trying to claim that the project belonged to him.
"Our game is not stolen. One of the former developers of our user team TJ ATOMICA he left our team a long time ago. But now he claims that the entire project belongs to him," Hero Game Studios wrote. "But this is completely false. The game's rights and development process belong entirely to us. The reason why he did this is because the sales were increasing quite rapidly. He thinks he can make money from it."
Luckily, the game page has now been removed from Steam, and the strike on YouTube has been withdrawn so the video is now restored on the channel.
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