Modern Warships dev plagiarized a concept artist's ekranoplan design — then tried to sell it for $700

Mobile naval game Modern Warships, published by Gaijin and developed by Artstorm, is in hot water after concept artist Alex Jay Brady caught the studio lifting their 2014 ekranoplan design without permission and dropping it straight into the game as a purchasable vehicle.

Brady posted on X calling out the copy, noting they never gave permission but adding that the studio could still make it right: "Honestly if they'd just asked and sent me some $$$ I'd have had zero issues with them using it. It's not too late to do the right thing guys." Speaking to IGN, Brady pointed out that the plagiarism goes deeper than surface aesthetics — the copied design carries over functional nonsense from the original concept, including engines that wash across the deck and planes that take off backward into the wind. Brady had made those errors because they knew nothing about ekranoplans at the time, and Artstorm "cloned all those mistakes wholesale." Artstorm publicly admitted the theft on X: "Fair call, and apologies from us. Your design was used as a reference without proper clearance. We'll contact you directly to make this right." Notably, the studio has not removed the ship — it's still in the game while the two sides reportedly work toward a deal. The pricing makes the situation worse: IGN calculated the ship costs between $50 and $100 via gacha pulls, or up to $700 to buy outright.

Artstorm's Modern Warships is a freemium PvP naval game that draws obvious visual and presentational comparisons to Wargaming's World of Warships, right down to the fan-of-ships promotional artwork style. The game's publisher, Gaijin, is best known for War Thunder — a studio no stranger to controversy, though typically of the classified-documents-leaked-on-forums variety rather than art theft. That a publisher of Gaijin's scale didn't have clearer IP clearance processes in place is a fair question to raise.

Brady's measured public response — calling it out firmly but leaving the door open for compensation — seems to have at least prompted an acknowledgment. Whether that translates into actual payment remains to be seen. The situation has also prompted observers to wonder whether other artists might find their work inside the game if they looked hard enough.