itch.io

The 5 day limit on the F2P version is intentional - that's the "Free" part. If you want to play beyond Day 5, you need the paid version.

Your first argument works against you - yeah, TL has a lot of downloads, which would make it all the more "threatening" for a rookie team to come in out of the blue with a first-time game that blows the "original" out of the water in pretty much every category. HPG has a rep as "the Tentacle Locker guys;" for another circle to come on the scene with a better attempt at their flagship title is a sucker punch to the ego. Their claim even lays it out in plain English: "This is hurting our IP." If they a no-name, up-and-coming studio couldn't be a threat, then why were they concerned, period?

As to holding the cards - did they? What license are TL and TL2 distributed under that was violated? Creating something doesn't automatically give you the right to any and all future content that is derived from or remotely similar - especially when it comes to game design and mechanics, as HPG claims (those are covered by patents, not copyright). You're right that the threat of legal action can shut a circle down instantly, but that cuts both ways - it's just as expensive to initiate action, and there's no profit in copyright busting in itself (the profit comes from defending market share).

You're right, blowback will be negligible - which is exactly why they can get away with being bullies. So why bother with any of this? Because bandwagoning - TL2 is an asset swap for TL, whereas LL came out the gate swinging with a better mechanical framework. Why shut that down when you can coopt it?

What about "screenshots are forever" do you not seem to grasp?

My mistake, that's not a copyright claim. Just an appeal to a website owner to take down content that infringes on your intellectual property - a claim of your copyrighted interests, so to speak.

Even if you deny filing in defense of your own copyright, you directly accused them of copyright infringement for other IPs. Why bring that matter up? It's not your IP so you have no personal stake, so maybe you just have the honorable intent of protecting other artists' work. ...but then you turn around and "totally support" the game, alleged IP infringement still intact. Almost as if it didn't really matter to begin with.

Nice semantics. You didn't submit a "DMCA takedown," true - you submitted a copyright claim through Itch. Different mechanisms, same effect.

Our damage control, more like. Screenshots are forever, HP, we all know what you tried to do - there's no coming back from weaponizing copyright claims.

Yeah, Hotpink's excuses for "We didn't INTEND the copyright warning as a threat" completely contradicts the language of their report:

It's killing the competition because they got so badly outclassed on a TL sequel.