An indie developer who created a demo of a Superman flying experience in Unreal Engine 5 said his work was stolen and listed for sale on Steam.
In April, we shared a video of an amazing Superman-style flight experience built in Unreal Engine 5. The demo, which is still free to try on itch.io, was built using Epic’s The Matrix Awakens City. Developer Tyson Butler-Boschma tweaked Matrix elements and inserted a Superman-like character to give players an idea of what future superhero games on Unreal Engine 5 might look like.
Two weeks ago, a fan pointed out to Butler-Boschma that a similar game popped up on Steam under the title City of Heroes Superman Edition. According to PC Gamer, a group by the name of Hero Game Studios apparently listed Butler-Boschma’s exact work on Steam at a price of $10.99, and copyrighted Butler-Boschma’s trailer promoting the free-to-play demo. claimed to give The game has since been removed from Steam, but not before the game’s creator got into a lot of trouble.
Feather TwitterButler-Boschma revealed that Hero Game Studios started going after his YouTube content after he listed the game as, “The team that stole my free Superman demo and is selling it on Steam is now on @YouTube as well.” claiming copyright of the material. ..they are directly attacking and harassing me at this point and I do not feel safe providing my personal information for a counter-claim…”
The Team Who Stole My Free Superman Demo And Is Selling It On Steam Is Now Claiming My Content Is Copyrighted @youtube Too…
They are directly attacking and harassing me to this point and I do not feel safe providing my personal information for a counter claim… pic.twitter.com/dqd0oHjul4Tyson Butler-Boschma (@TJATOMICA) November 14, 2022
Butler-Boschma left the A review About the game on Steam, warned people that the game was a scam, and that he was the real creator. Hero Game Studios replied review before the game was removed, saying the following:
Our game is not stolen. TJ ATOMICA, one of the former developers on our user team, left our team a long time ago, but now he claims that the whole project is his. But this is completely false. The rights to the game and the development process are entirely ours. He did this because sales were increasing rapidly. He thinks he can make money from it.
Butler-Boschma (who goes by TJ Atomica on Twitter and Steam) told PC Gamer that he has no idea who Hero Game Studios is, and his LinkedIn lists no affiliation with the company.
The developer bought the game on Steam only to find the opening level, which he said he built from scratch, included a message he wrote explaining how the demo worked. Butler-Boschma said, “This 100% confirms to me that this project was created by me and that this developer just downloaded, stole, and passed this work off as his own.”
All that’s left on Steam is Butler-Boschma’s negative review, Hero Game Studios’ response, and some comments in support of Butler-Boschma. You can still check out the free demo for yourself at itch.io.
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Logan Plante is a freelance writer covering video games and entertainment news for IGN. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
