14 DAY TRIAL // A copyright suit against 3D Realms was filled by Darin Scott and Edward Polgardy of Cinemagraphix Entertainment for the developer's 2009 title, Earth No More. Could the Duke Nukem devs really be in danger? Only time will be able to answer that question.
According to the complaint, the two persons claim to have shopped their idea for a game called Earth No More back in 2005 and they have proposed the project to several companies, including 3D Realms (Apogee Software back then). Scott and Polgardy's complaint accuses the defendants of copyright infringement, unlawful competition, misappropriation, unfair business practices, unjust enrichment, conspiracy and other claims.
Back in October 2007, 3D Realms themselves filed some court documents - a preemptive request for declaratory judgment against Scott and Polgardy - in which they asked a judge to rule out Earth No More's property infringement, stating that the game's development was done "without access to or use of any material created by" Scott and Polgardy.
However, in an interview with next-gen.biz, attorney Tre Lovell said that that the average person would "absolutely" be able to tell similarities between the game that Scott and Polgardy pitched and 3D Realms' announced title: "First of all, the title 'Earth No More' is a title that I haven't been able to find in the title of any intellectual property out there. There's no movie, TV show, book, play, anything like that which has the title 'Earth No More.'"
He gives further details saying that both the game's concept, as well as the concept art are very similar. According to Lovell, the initial game concept involved spores that terraform to Earth and start to spread, which is something that is not very popular for today's video games. He also declared that he tried to settle the suit with 3D Realms, but efforts "proved futile".