505 Games have defended their recent release How to Survive after Roam’s lead creator Ryan Sharr took to Kickstarter to report on the game for copying aspects of Roam’s design. Ryan Sharr’s statement concerning How to Survive is as follows;
“I am not foolish. There are tons of zombie games out on the market and a lot borrow ideas from each other,”
Sharr then went on to mention the important evidence backing his claim, an email earlier in the year from 505 Games which shows their interest in Roam.
“Until I saw the original email that 505 had sent I thought this could just be another coincidence. It is not a coincidence.”
“This particular theft is blatant and 505 Games took advantage of the situation knowing full well what they were doing. It is rare that a company will contact an indie developer to offer a publishing deal and when it’s refused hire another company to deliberately rip off the game idea and design to the core.”
“Due to the nature of Kickstarter I had to post all of Roam’s design ideas online to get funded. I threw everything I had into this. I put everything on the line for this project and took a huge risk. I moved across the country for this game. My partner is at risk. It isn’t fair that 505 Games thinks they can do this. They shouldn’t get to reap the rewards off of my risk.”
505 Games however dismiss this claim, pointing to video evidence of How to Survive’s existence an entire year before their email contact with the Roam team in January. A spokesperson from 505 Games went on to release the following statement to Develop concerning the claim.
“We’re disappointed to hear of this comment by the developer of Roam, How To Survive has been in development for over two years [under the] codename ‘Monster Island.
“We deeply regret such statements that question Eko Software’s work and feel we need to protect their honest labour to minimise the negative effects irresponsible comments are having on the game.”
We recently reviewed How to Survive here at VGU and were able to sing 505 Games praise for the title.
What do you think of the situation? Was Ryan Sharr in the right to make the accusations against How to Survive? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.