Over the course of 2025, we’ve been covering the wild story of Daybreak pursuing a profit-seeking EverQuest emulator, The Heroes Journey, in court, accusing it of making serious money (as much as $100K a month) on the studio’s copyrighted IP, effectively starving the incomes of the original EverQuest franchise, which is still alive and well. To date, the court has largely sided with Daybreak; in September, the judge granted Daybreak’s request for a preliminary injunction against the server’s operation, shutting THJ down for the duration of litigation, and then last month, the judge upheld that injunction while turning the case over to arbitrators to decided whether it belongs in arbitration (heh). Since then, there have been a few more twists and turns worth noting here in the saga.
First, at the end of October, THJ’s attorney filed a motion for reconsideration, continuing to argue that there is no evidence that THJ caused a decline in EverQuest play, that clips from social media aren’t representative, and that the court erred in its evaluative standards and judgment. The judge basically told them to pound sand because they were rehashing arguments already made and decided without any new evidence, among other recriminations.
“As demonstrated above, Defendants do not present the Court with newly discovered evidence or an intervening change in the controlling law,” the court wrote. “Instead, making the same arguments they did in responding (ECF No. 50) to Daybreak’s motion for preliminary injunction (ECF No. 38), they essentially argue the Court was wrong in its decision.” Yeah, it went about that well for THJ.
Second, here in December, Daybreak’s filings make it clear that it is pursuing (not suing) another actor in the drama, that being Zachary Karlsson. Karlsson’s name has come up in the case before now, largely because he filed a declaration in his name on behalf of THJ that suggests a level of involvement; he is a former SOE employee from the turn of the century who later worked at Brad McQuaid’s Sigil Games and most recently consulted on Jeff Butler’s crypto/blockchain MMORPG Avalon.
But this week, it’s become clear that Daybreak has been trying and failing to serve Karlsson with the court’s preliminary injunction order. Daybreak’s filing tries to suggest Karlsson has been hunkering down and avoiding answering the door to dodge official notice of the PI Order, which explicitly forbids everyone from working on THJ and similar software. No, seriously: There’s a whole separate affidavit from the servicer outlining the six attempts made to contact Karlsson, the state of his trash, and the noise from his dogs and water. (OK but honestly as an Xennial I don’t want to open my door for strangers either, so let’s not read too much into that.)
Regardless, the reason for the service of the PI Order is that the company alleges that Karlsson “acted in concert” with Takahashi et al. to develop and distribute the game. Well, maybe we don’t need to say “alleges,” since Karlsson himself said he was a THJ admin who supported and promoted the game, right there in his own sworn declaration.
In short, Daybreak seeks the court’s authorization to serve Karlsson in an alternative way: through certified mail and his Discord and Reddit accounts, the former of which he disclosed in his original declaration. We have truly arrived in 2025, friends, and that is where the case stays for now, as the judge has granted Daybreak’s request to redact Karlsson’s address.
