The increasing evidence that EGLS, developer of iOS hack ‘n slash Armed Heroes Online, had “borrowed” both visual and audio elements from Runic Games’ Torchlight seems to have done its job.
In a statement released to Joystiq (I’ve been unable to procure a copy, despite reaching out through several avenues), EGLS said it would begin to change Armed Heroes Online.
“We do note that the recent controversial discussions about Armed Heroes Online had brought harm to our company's reputation and worse got our players confused and upset, which is not what we expect to see,” said the company in a statement. “As a professional game developer, EGLS has been always dedicating our every effort to bring out better game experience for our players. Players always come first. There, we prefer to modify some parts of Armed Heroes Online where have caused those disputes rather than go on arguing. As long as this carves out a way out of angry disputes, it will be definitely worth our efforts.”
Nowhere in the statement does EGLS actually admit to any wrongdoing, and it continued to make the argument that there were simply similarities between Armed Heroes Online and other games, not copyright infringement.
You can look through my story from yesterday to judge for yourself what constitutes a similarity.
In any case, Armed Heroes Online is no longer on the App Store, Canada or otherwise. It’s unclear if that was the result of Runic Games’ lawyers or EGLS pulling the game down itself. The company also claims it will release material to Apple and other parties if issues persist once it has "modified" the game and resubmitted to Apple.