Some of this may have been a predictable outcome…

Ward B is a team made up of industry vets who’ve worked on the likes of Call of Duty, Destiny, Halo, and Overwatch. And one of the focuses for their upcoming game, Oceanic, is on designing futuristic, yet realistic, guns for the game. Which is important, as it’s supposed to be set 200 years in the future. And for quite some time, they shared their progress, and a peek at their designs, with the community following them.

That, however, has come to a sad close, with Oceanic continuing on in private development. And it all seems to come down to a Kalashnikov Concern contractor seemingly stealing the design of the shotgun they designed for Oceanic.

In early 2020, Ward B CEO Marcellino Sauceda got an email from one Maxim Kuzin, a contractor for Kalishnikov Concern. Overtures were made to have the design of Oceanic‘s Mastodon shotgun into a real, functional shotgun, with the potential for the design to make it airsoft and toy versions down the line. Granted, this would require Ward B to replace the fictional branding with Kalishnikov’s. The whole thing sounded like a dream come true to Sauceda.

It’s huge. There’s no game studio today that collaborated with a weapon manufacturer to make a fully operational firearm. And we would have been the OGs of that.

But they’ve completely ripped that opportunity from us.

Marcellino Sauceda

At some point, Kuzin stopped communicating. No contracts had been signed. Everyone figured the deal had fallen through.

And then Kalishnikov announced a variant on their existing MP-155 shotgun, the MP-155 Ultima on August 21st, 2020. Which they describe as a gun inspired by video games. At first, the team was ecstatic.

The day they first announced it and they showed it off, the concept artist came to me and they were like, ‘Hey, they finally made our shotgun!

Marcellino Sauceda

While at first glance the Ultima bears, at best, passing resemblance to the Mastodon, the devil’s in the details. There are points on the gun which notably coincide nicely with the Mastodon — points which Ward B added for aesthetic purposes which really have no use on a real world gun. Notably, and most crucial, being an L-shaped indentation on the side of the gun, where the bolt would be on the other side. It’s important, because its an aesthetic design element that Ward B had used on other guns before the Mastodon.

Nothing about this gives the receiver stability, it has nothing to do with it because everything is functioning through the internals. The fact that they included this indent is kind of… it’s sketchy, because I kind of feel they have the [Mastodon’s 3D model] and they forgot to exclude that part – because they did remove it on the other side with the bolt.

Marcellino Sauceda

They didn’t quite realize what had actually happened at first. Honestly, they really gave Kuzin way more benefit of the doubt than they should’ve. One of Sauceda’s first moves was to email Kuzin.

I didn’t want to make a scene to their legal department right away. And I was like, ‘The papers weren’t delivered, they weren’t signed. We’re just checking that this collaboration’s still going through as planned.

We were quiet because we thought that things were going to be going good. We thought that even though he didn’t send contracts to us, we felt that, OK, maybe he’ll still go by his word. And even though he didn’t send it and the gun’s already [been revealed] we were being quiet, hoping that things would be done properly, that it was just delayed or something like that. But I already had an idea in my mind that he was definitely not going to come back. They completely stole it.

Marcellino Sauceda

Kuzin, naturally, never responded. But did speak to IGN, telling his side of the story. He states that, after overtures towards the deal began, he started investigating Ward B and Oceanic, finding “that the company does not have enough of its own funds to complete the development, there are no investors, [and] the release date is unknown”, with his conclusion being that working with them was too risky.

That is very clearly a load of bullshit.

Among Kuzin’s claims were that Ward B had not paid the artist that designed the Mastodon, making the whole thing difficult, as there was no line of ownership. This is also bullshit, as Ward B pretty clearly owns the design, and while they were on a deferred payment plan, have since paid the artist, who I’m fairly sure still works with them and is likely pretty upset about the whole ordeal. Coincidentally, when Kuzin asked the artist about the design, said artist directed him to the higher ups at Ward B, and all of the renders of the gun include Oceanic’s branding on them.

Kuzin then worked with another designer from Russia to create the Ultima’s design “from scratch“. He pointed to a patent as proof of originality, and that he received confirmation of the design’s originality from the Russia Designers Association. Among the many listed sources contained therein was, yes, the Mastodon from Oceanic. Sauceda was not amused.

Filing for a patent means nothing, there’s plenty of cases where a patent gets disputed due to provided evidence.

We’ve heard that they made sketches from scratch as well, but redrawing an existing design doesn’t make it yours just because you have your own sketches of something you stole. Sounds like Kuzin is implying tracing our design on paper then bringing it into the real world and adding an Apple Watch onto it changes it from theft to innovation.

Marcellino Sauceda

This is fundamentally true. Fun fact: notorious internet motherfucker Chris-Chan once copyrighted Sonichu, despite owning the rights to neither Sonic the Hedgehog or Pikachu. It’s a lesson in the fact that many of these certification bodies aren’t quite as savvy to a fast one being pulled on them as you might think, doubly so if the people doing the work aren’t familiar with the properties at hand.

Sauceda took his complaints directly to Kalishnikov Concern, who claimed that the Ultima was designed from scratch. More importantly, they claimed to have never heard of the Mastodon design, ever.

September 2020 saw Ward B sending a cease and desist order to Kalishnikov, with the next month adding DMCA takedowns for the online posts featuring the MP-155 Ultima. Kalishnikov finally replied; they requested via email that the takedown orders be withdrawn, and that the design had been used legally. the message ends by asking Ward B to send proof that they have any claim over the Ultima. Ward B withdrew the takedown requests, and sent proof. and then nothing happened.

After some time, however, Sauceda was sent a message from an anonymous source that he thinks proves the skullduggery that went on. The message seemingly shows Kuzin attempting to buy the design off of the artist. Kuzin did not comment on the veracity of the message.

So did they pay for your shotgun or we can buy it to stop the conflict with them shortly? Cause there are lawyers connected from both side now and truly it seems like a spoiling of time [sic]

Moreover, Sauceda found design documents branded with KDNMX – Kuzin’s personal web address. Contained therein was a design flowchart which includes the Mastodon, the original version of the MP-155, and a number of attempts at blending the two together, though the final design used by Kalishnikov is absent.

There were also messages between Kuzin and the Russian designer he got to do the final design; messages which of course he refused to comment on with IGN. One of which has him indicate that he liked the design of the Mastodon, and wanted this artist to replicate it. Notably, he tells the artist they can just “get the existing renders and put the Kalashnikov logo on it”. Which is pretty much exactly what happened. When things got down to the final design, Kuzin told the artist “realy [sic] impressive gun! Just sent all pics to Kalashnikov vice president”. Sauceda was not happy with this.

We’ve talked to them. We’ve talked to their legal department. The funny thing is they claim that their vice-president isn’t aware of our design or even who Ward B is. We showed them the exact renders that were rebranded, and Maxim Kuzin stated in a message between him and his artist that he sent these to the vice president. And so they lied – they completely lied on their part that they’re unaware of us.

Marcellino Sauceda

And to add insult to injury, Kalishnikov licensed the design to another studio, Battlestate Games, to use in their game, Escape from Tarkov. In early 2021, the MP-155 Ultima was added to the game with its own kit. Ward B made attempts to let them know that they considered this unauthorized use of their design, but got no word back. Needless to say, this wasn’t just a loss of potential exposure, but a crushing blow to morale at the fledgling studio.

A lot of the people that were working on the shotgun with us, every day they wake up and they see the Ultima, or they hear people talking about it. It’s completely demotivated a lot of us because it feels like [we could just be] making something, just for some international corporate-ran business to just take everything from us.

Marcellino Sauceda

In essence, due to the particulars of the case, namely involving a foreign company, Ward B has simply had to drop the matter.

We came to the point of realization that, due to Kalashnikov Concern being out of the country, filing any official legal action would require us to be present in Russia, which our funding would unfortunately not cover. We’ve dropped the goal of reclaiming our property legally.

Marcellino Sauceda

As Micaela Mantegna, a lawyer specializing in video games and intellectual property, puts it:

Litigation is clearly the worst possible outcome, particularly when it involves foreign law and overseas jurisdictions. It’s an expensive and lengthy process, with potentially uncertain results. You might reach a settlement, but you have to consider all the possible downfalls before suing

Micaela Mantegna

She does, however, go on to say to IGN:

As an activist, one of the things I feel about the gaming community is it doesn’t stand for this kind of skulduggery. When the case goes public, they’re probably not going to buy the gun and they’re going to stand for the underdog. That’s the amazing power of gamers when we unite around a good cause. We’re very vocal about the things that we don’t like, and we take action to change them.

Micaela Mantegna

The real sad thing is, the original deal that Ward B would’ve agreed to wasn’t even about profit on their end in the first place.

When we were in contact with Maxim Kuzin, we simply agreed on only receiving credit for the design. Ward B was to not receive any payment, and [we] saw this as a plus to have potential partnerships in the future.

We all took this as a huge opportunity, which we’re still proud to see has come to life. We just wish this was handled properly

Marcellino Sauceda

Source: IGN

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