Developers of the game, "The Sinking City", ask fans NOT to buy their game from Steam.

[Shagger]

You read that right. The Ukrainian developer Frogwares took to social media when their H. P. Lovecraft inspired adventure/horror game reappeared for sale on Steam. They urged fans not to buy their own game from Steam as this game was put back on sale on Valve's PC storefront buy their French publisher Nacon without the developer's approval or cooperation.

 

The game was originally removed from Steam back in August 2020 by Frogwares due to a dispute over unpaid royalties and rights of control over the game. Frogwares originally filed a lawsuit a year earlier over said despute. According to Frogwares, they were happy to have the game remain on sale during this legal process and hopefully deal with the situation quietly, but lost patience and thus pulled the game from sale. Nacon took this action to an appeal court in Paris who ruled in the publisher's favour, ordering Frogwares not take any further action in relation to the contract with Nacon until the dispute had been resolved. This meant The Sinking City could return to Steam and indeed Frogwares did re-up it in January 2021, but it was pulled once again soon after. Why it was placed back on sale by Frogwares only to pulled almost immediately, I don't know. 

 

Then, on February 26th, the game suddenly appeared back on Steam yet again. According to Frogwares, this is an older, less polished version of the game, most likely a pre-release presented to Nacon before the game originally launched as a show of progress that was never actually meant to be sold. A more detailed article on this mess from Eurogamer here. 

 

To me, this is just the action of a desperate and bitter publisher that thinks they can get away with not paying their due to a game developer. It takes an extreme situation to bring a developer to say "don't buy our game". I'd also say this doesn't look great for Steam. It's no secret their vetting is a joke, but for a less polished version of a game to reappear on Steam without the developer's approval is something else.

 

In Nacon's defence, though, many of the issues this version of the game has are resolvable if Frogwares offered support for updates, cloud saving and other online mechanisms that they are withholding right now, so the state of the game isn't entirely Nacon's fault. In the end, this publisher dose have a case to claim rights to thier IP's as publishers do and are justified in defending those rights. However, if it's true that they haven't paid Frogwares what they're due, my sympathy evaporates fairly quickly. 

 

I'm not gonna let Frogwares fully off the hook either. They put the game back on sale for it only to removed almost immediately three months after the court of appeal ordered them not to take action in relation to their contract with Nacon. That's likely why the game was removed so quickly. Why do that?

 

The important thing here though is DO NOT buy this game on Steam. The game is available on PS4 as well, but I'm a little unsure if this debacle has affected that version or not. Still, this game is probably best avoided entirely for now until this mess is cleared up.

 

What do you guys think of this? Who's in the right, who's in the wrong and what needs to happen going forward. 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Shagger

[Withywarlock]

I'm trying to follow this story as best I can because my Lovecraft itch still needs scratching and I could take this game on, but not at its price on the Windows Store. While I side more with the developers on this, I don't think they're entirely innocent as we've seen small developers acting too big for their britches in the past, and this could be one of those instances. I don't know enough to say if the developers are 100% telling the truth or if this is just rallying people to say 'publisher bad' on social media.

Whoever's right, I agree, Shagger: don't get this game because there's plenty of time and room for this to get messier.

[killamch89]

We always talk about greedy gaming companies like EA and others but somehow the greedy publishers always escape criticism for some reason. They contributed to the current state of the gaming industry as much as those greedy gaming companies - in some cases, even more. We see governments going after EA and others, they also need to target these publishers or else this kind of abuse will continue.

[Withywarlock]

On 2/28/2021 at 9:18 PM, Withywarlock said:

there's plenty of time and room for this to get messier.

....it got messier. Neither party is helping their case, even if the law has thus far sided with Nacon.

For the record, video games industry, I don't like being right all the time.

Edited March 3, 2021 by Withywarlock