A Japanese indie developer has been blocked from selling his game on Steam for copyright infringement, despite owning the copyright to the IPs Steam believed has been infringed.

As Daikichi_EMP prepared to release a playable demo of his new title, Wired Tokyo 2007, Steam blocked the release on the grounds it could be infringing a “third-party intellectual property”.

Valve pointed out that some screenshots of the game contain “board game objects” from board games Second Best and Dinostone, which is true. However, they too were developed by Daikichi, albeit under different names – and the developer doesn’t know how to prove it.

Daikichi shared the conundrum on X/Twitter, and the story was picked up by Japanese games site, Game Spark.

“I’m sorry to everyone for the delay in the Steam demo review,” the developer wrote on social media, as translated via machine (thanks, Automaton). “The motif of a board game I personally created in the past, placed within the game Wired Tokyo 2007, is getting caught by Steam’s side as third-party intellectual property.

“It’s not a third party – it’s just me wanting to use my own intellectual property rights myself – so I have no idea what the meaning of this is at all.”

Despite explaining this to Steam support, the team remain unconvinced, and are demanding he provide evidence of licence agreements or IP ownership, or confirmation via their legal representation. As an indie developer, Daikichi says he cannot easily do this.

“I think swapping out just the images for the board game motifs in this stage would get it through Steam’s review,” he added. “But, this is my own work, yet I’m being told there’s ‘suspicion of infringing on third-party intellectual property’, and there’s absolutely no reason I should have to do that.

“Even though I’ve provided the evidence during the application, it’s still not good enough? What am I supposed to do???”

The developer has now resubmitted his demo along with a document to grant himself “permission” to use his own work. He has yet to receive a response, and the demo is still listed as “coming soon”.