Valve refused to publish the developer's project due to a reference to their own game

Valve refused to publish developer's project due to a reference to his own game

A Japanese indie dev faced an odd roadblock while trying to put his title on Steam: the demo was stopped over a possible copyright claim — even though, he says, the material in question belongs to him.

Working under the name Daikichi, the creator is building WIRED TOKYO 2007. It’s a 3D action piece where the player climbs above Tokyo and occasionally leaps back down to move forward. He submitted a demo but got a rejection notice citing a mention of third-party IP — specifically “card games with dinosaurs” found inside WIRED TOKYO 2007. That tag appears to point at Dinostone, a 2023 release by the same dev; in other words, a self-reference that Steam’s moderation system flagged as someone else’s work.

Steam demo review is delayed, sorry everyone. The motif of the board game that I created in the past, placed inside WIRED TOKYO 2007, is flagged by Steam as third-party intellectual property. I want to use my own IP, not a third party’s, so I do not understand this at all. pic.twitter.com/XuFvlUVRgH

Steam wants proof: a license, a legal opinion, something that shows the right to use the content. No paperwork = no release. Trouble is, Daikichi published his earlier game under a pseudonym, which made proving authorship tricky. Hiring an att'y wasn’t a realistic option — indie devs rarely have spare cash for legal fees.

So he took matters into his own hands. He drafted and signed a document granting himself permission to reuse his own work (DIY paperwork, basically) and resubmitted it for review. Now he’s waiting to see if that will clear the block.

If WIRED TOKYO 2007 does go live, it’ll be on PC via Steam only, and there won’t be a Russian localization.