Towards the end of 2021, Atlus filed a lawsuit in New York District Court against players of the MMO Shin Megami Tensei Imagine: Online. The game has been “dead” for years, but the fan project “ReImagine” has established fanmade servers to keep it afloat, and the players running those servers (Rekuiemu, ReImagine, and Comp_Hack) have recently been summoned to appear in court.
It isn’t uncommon for an online game’s servers to be kept alive by passionate players, particularly with MMOs. When that’s the case, the game’s developer just lets the players do as they please, though some developers (such as Blizzard or Riot Games) have forced those fan servers to shut down by threatening legal action.
Shin Megami Tensei Imagine: Online released in Japan in 2007 and North America the following year. Management of the game changed hands in the west, and its North American service ended in 2014. Japan service would end two years later., and the “ReImagine” project revived the defunct game in 2020.
Atlus’ court documents focus solely on Comp_Hack and Rekuiemu, as ReImagine shut down its server and website voluntarily. Atlus accuses the two servers of violating copyright law, by “creating and operating an exact copy” of Imagine Online’s original website. The two groups were also accused of creating a “server emulator” that emulated the original game and let players play the game online.
Rekuiemu, and its Discord server, have also reportedly been taken down.
“Atlus seeks injunctive relief to stop Defendants’ unlawful acts
complained of herein,” the documents continue. “Atlus also seeks monetary relief (up to $25,000 per violation) in an amount sufficient to compensate it
for its loss, an accounting and award of Defendants’ total profits flowing from their infringing
activities.”
It sounds like an open-and-shut case, however in 2018, the Library of Congress ruled that video game historians can circumvent the DMCA to preserve online games. That said, the ruling didn’t cover emulators, which adds some complications to the case.
I’m devastated to know that Imagine is now offline permanently.
It was one of my games of the Pandemics, the fanbase was passionate, and it now kinda walks to become lost media.
It is a sad chapter for the Megaten fanbase. But thank you Re:Imagine team for all you have done! https://t.co/S8ejtxHul8 pic.twitter.com/vp2lLwx8Cs— Devil Summoner Blaze #SoulHackers2 (@LiusBlaze) September 26, 2022
