Stardock has announced that Star Control has been removed from Steam due to a DMCA take down notice. According to the developers, and even though there is a legal dispute between Stardock and Reiche and Ford regarding the trademarks and copyrights pertaining to Star Control, the creators of Star Control have issued a DMCA and have successfully removed Stardock’s title from Steam.

In case you weren’t aware of, Steam and GOG have a policy of taking down content that receive DMCA notices regardless of the merits of the claims. Surprisingly enough, Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford have decided to bypass the legal system and issued the DMCA notice in order to hurt the game’s sales (and obviously Stardock itself).

As the developers claimed, Star Control: Origins does not contain any copyrighted work of Reiche or Ford. The team spent 5 years working on it making it its own game and while it plays like you would expect a Star Control game, it’s not really breaking any copyright laws.

This feels similar to Bethesda suing Mojang for using the word “Scrolls” in its title and PUBG suing Fortnite for copyright infringement.

The good news for gamers is that those who have already purchased the game will be able to continue playing it, and from what we can see the game is still available for purchase on GOG.

Still, Stardock stated that it will have to lay off some of the men and women who are assigned to the game as it’s been already removed from Steam (something that obviously has an impact on the team’s revenue).

UPDATE:

Stardock has informed us that Star Control: Origins is available for purchase on its website. The team is also knocking 50% off of its retail price, making it $19.99 for a limited time.

UPDATE 2:

Stardock got in touch with us and confirmed that the game is once again available on Steam. Here is what Stardock’s CEO Brad Wardell had to say.

“Stardock is happy to report that Star Control: Origins has been restored for sale on Steam.”