QL was our first game and although it was a big milestone for us, it was created at a time before we understood version control software. We do not have access to the source code anymore and cannot make any fixes or changes to the game. Because of this, we have decided to disable the ability for anyone to buy copies of the game. Thank you for your time and feel free to reach out to us.
The trailer looks like an awesome vaporwave freeze tag indie game.
They told you their reason: they were inexperienced. Why do you assume they must be lying, and hiding another reason?
Because their stated reason is stupid. You can do all this complex stuff but forget the turn it off and back on? Get fucked with that nonsense.
Then tell me: what else could the reason be? Why make people deliberately think you’re stupid? What’s the advantage?
And yes, this is a thing that happens literally to thousands of people every day. Almost everyone has a “I didn’t make backups” story. Humans aren’t born perfect - they make mistakes and learn from them. How many doctoral theses do you think are lost every day due to missing backups? Or how much art, how much data in general?
Instead of assuming some evil genius agenda hiding behind their stupid stated reason, you could just try to accept that people make mistakes. But you surely don’t ever make any, so why would anyone else?
Maybe they have plagiarized code. Who knows?
That would be a worthwhile idea if any evidence pointed towards it (e.g. any public documentation about legal communications).
Without any evidence, it’s a useless accusation for an explanation that:
I can accuse you of any number of horrible things, and I’d have the same amount of evidence you have for your accusation. What would this add to the discussion?