Atlus is suing fans who have been hosting private servers for the defunct MMO Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, based on the eponymous Shin Megami Tensei franchise. The game originally released in Japan back in 2007 and globally over the next two years before ultimately closing down all servers by 2016.
Game archival, piracy, and the cross-section between the two has become a growing point of contention in recent years. Fans argue that it’s important for users to be able to archive game data as companies may abandon if not outright delete games that have outlived their marketability. Countless untold games are considered “lost media” and many more likely would be if not for players taking matters into their own hands.
MMOs are an even bigger grey area for archival than traditional games. After all, in order to present the game as it was meant to be played private servers become a necessity. Back in 2018 The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment was granted a DMCA exemption for the purpose of preserving online games, showing there is some consideration for archiving MMOs.
In 2020, three different services went live that brought the defunct Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine to players: ReImagine, Rekuiemu, and COMP_Hack. In the wake of the lawsuits, all three have gone down with ReImagine choosing to close its doors in anticipation of a lawsuit, while Rekuiemu and COMP_Hack are actively being sued.
Despite the MMO shutting down over five years ago, Atlus has reportedly said that these private servers “have caused and will continue to cause irreparable damage to Atlus unless restrained by this Court”. Given that these private servers didn’t go live until 2020, it’s unlikely they had anything to do with the game’s closure back in 2016.
Atlus originally filed their complaint in December of last year and according to recent court filings the company is continuing to pursue litigation against the private servers. At the time of writing the most recent developments were on September 23 and include summons being issued to a “John Doe” representing COMP_Hack.
Ultimately, the intellectual property that is the game’s code and assets belong to Atlus. There’s an argument to be made about the servers being a preservation effort by fans, but if the claim that the servers did cause damage to Atlus as a company that could fall through. It will be interesting to see what kind of evidence Atlus will put forward to back up their claim of damages when the MMO has been effectively dead for over five years. Ironically, Shin Megami Tensei and its spinoff franchise Persona have been enjoying a renewed popularity since Persona 5 released the same year the MMO shut down in Japan.
