Indie Dev Frogwares Sues Publisher Nacon Over Contract Breach, IP Rights Abuse, Withheld Pay, & More
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- SOURCE 1: www.metacritic...
SOURCE 2: frogwares.com/t...
SOURCE 3: / 1297291890702811136
SOURCE 4: / 1297291902828580865
SOURCE 5: drive.google.c...
SOURCE 6: drive.google.c...
SOURCE 7: www.ebay.com/s...
SOURCE 8: drive.google.c...
SOURCE 9: / 1177221382003933184
SOURCE 10: www.ign.com/ar...
/ yongyea
/ yongyea
TOP PATRONS
[CIPHER]
- Aiten Williams
- CommitedHail
[BIG BOSS]
- Bancheis
- Brin
- Jonathan Ball
- JT
- Phil
- WECKmaster 329
[BOSS]
- Charlie Galvin
- Devon B
- Joe Hunt
- Michael Redmond
- Peter Vrba
- Shepard Gaming
- Time Dragonlord
[LEGENDARY]
- BattleBladeWar
- Gerardo Andrade
- Mark Taylor
- Theron Webb
- Yue
Talk about some serious bad luck. These mid-tier publishers seeking to exploit indie devs can go fuck themselves.
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TOP PATRONS
[CIPHER]
- Aiten Williams
- CommittedHail
[BIG BOSS]
- Brin
- Bancheis
- Jonathan Ball
- JT
- Phil
- WECKmaster 329
[BOSS]
- Charlie Galvin
- Devon B
- Joe Hunt
- Michael Redmond
- Peter Vrba
- Shepard Gaming
- Time Dragonlord
[LEGENDARY]
- BattleBladeWar
- Gerardo Andrade
- Mark Taylor
- Theron Webb
- Yue
.
Yong is always first.
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hi
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hold up, BBI hold the money that was not even theirs in the first place and want devs to give up the assets for the game for said money... these guys need some jail time.
More like need some guillotine
I agree, and they should be shut down. BBI has basically committed extortion by holding The Sinking City hostage like this.
Frogware are going about this the right way by taking them to court. The courts will make it legally binding that frogware have to get their due money without handing over any assets.
@@ThePenhalionsPost they also apparently have a full paper trail for all of this, so bbi should have no chance in theory
This is straight up illegal tho how da fuck were the decision makers at Big Ben this inept? Were they so envious of Frogwares' good games that they wanted to steal their identity? I can't understand the thought process behind this.
Frogware: “Here is our contracts, what happened, our evidence.”
BBi: “How dare they reveal that information! Our BS is always classified!”
scumbag publishers will always be a part of the problem in the gaming industry.
Especially EA
@@TheREALHugo4 and 505
So as Activision.
@@arifwilliams3440 and bandai namco
Take Two
It doesn't matter if their games are good or bad. No developers should be screwed over like this by any publisher.
exactly, hopefully another publisher sees this and scoops them up. There is definitely a fanbase for their games
The Sinking Publisher
Their games are good, the sherlock holmes trilogy they made are pretty damn interesting, and while eurojank, the sinking city is full of charm. Their upcoming sherlock holmes games about a young sherlock holmes has systems in it that seem more next gen than anything xbox is bringing out.
People complain, yet they keep buying Take Two Games (more like, Pay 2 Games), even after they stole Kerbal Space Program 2
@@thedukeofdeathpt6262 I don't buy anything from them.
You've really got to feel bad for these developers, publishers need to stop abusing their power to the point of ruining a company
Self-publishing ftw
@@pvshka They need a lot of money, which for most indie developers, don't have.
They can get on MS and SONY self pub system. But digital only. But NINTENDO tbere no such thing as one. A d theyv.ust pay NINTENDO do so.
_Wow. Another scummy publisher. What a surprise... It's almost as if every scum is running a publisher company_
Oh hey, Michiru good evening to you
NACON: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further."
😂
"This deal keeps getting worse all the time!"
Nice
We stand here on MY achievement
Literally posted the same thing a moment ago. Yabeatme
It's called wage theft, look it up. It's THE biggest percentage (in terms of total value) of all subcategories in the category of theft. And almost nobody gets arrested for this.
white collar crimes generally don't have an arrest
TheTotallyRetro13 they should though
Someone's been watching Castle Super Beast lately
The main problem is that you can't arrest a company. If companies could be "convicted" of crimes like this and were forced to stop operations for a number of days based on the severity of the crime (akin to a person being assigned a prison sentence) then the crimes would stop. Currently the penalty for violating the laws are usually less than following the law. And that is only if the company gets caught and the right agencies follow up. If corporations are 'people' and protected by the first amendment than they should be held accountable for the crimes they commit like people are.
@@Skow8333 Isn't there such a thing in the UK as "Lifting the 'Veil of Incorporation'" in order to deal with exactly this issue though?
*It's worth looking up, you'd be surprised what you might find! :P*
frogwares just can’t catch a break. I wish them the best of luck in the future with other publishers or ideally self publishing.
@Cbg G But would the money go to them, or their scummy trash publisher?
@@IskandarTheWack I think it goes to the devs because 20:20
Self publishing is really expensive, which is a further drain on finances
Edward Him
Having to sue your publisher in order to get the pay your owed is also a drain on finances. I’m not saying self publishing would be easy but it is a better use of time and money.
@@Lerasium
That's hindsight bias though right? Most devs don't publish internally, and it's not an issue. The only reason cases like this are so sensational is because they deviate from the norm so much.
I saw that the sinking city's steam page was down but I had no idea this was the reason for it disappearing. What a mess.
Was the reason they fucked up the release on epic as well.
Not surprising for Big Ben, this company is a massive piece of trash. I had a teammate who was working for them at a time, and he was flat out telling us the company didn't care about quality or being honest in any way, shape or form; he ended up leaving and went on to work for Ubisoft.
And this is only one example, where I live, Big Ben products are considered to not be touched upon even with a ten feet pole, this name is simply synonymous with crap.
And while there are indeed laws to protect business in France under the pandemic situation, that excuse Big Ben is giving won't hold before any judge, because these laws certainly don't protect you for the logical consequences of not holding your end of a contract.
So what's your opinion on the TDU remake? (Test Drive: Solar Crown)
I went to an event about 15 years ago, where BigBen where one of the companies at the show. They looked like a company like Mad Catz, and all they showed where cheap looking peripherals and other tat.
...well, that sounds like an 'out of the frying pan' moment for your teammate lol
BBI's response sounds like a very typical 'our corporate lawyers have told us to deny everything and say nothing else' response. Whether that's because they lack counter arguments/evidence, don't want to risk a judge disliking the case having been taken to a 'public' forum etc. I suppose we'll have to wait for the outcome to see.
if you don't mind asking your friend, how is he doing at Ubisoft now ? Is it somewhat better of an experience ?
I really feel bad for Frogware because we need more "middle shelf" developers like them.
focus home interactive, does a lot of double A.
@@bryan0x05 focus home did the same shit to Frogwares with their Sherlock Holmes game
@@Blood-PawWerewolf oh **** really?! I play a decent amount of their games, and at least for devs like BBI, Insurgency Sandstorm people, and Eugen Systems it seemed to work out for them.
I really hope they can maybe achieve self-publishing on steam or something. If they keep getting burned like this, this is just ridiculous.
@@Blood-PawWerewolf Yeah I was very dissapointed in Focus Home because I really liked some of their games.
@@bryan0x05 it was something else. Basically focus arrived at end of publisher contract and said to frog ware, if you want us to continue publish your game, you will have to sign the same contract as before, an extension in other words. Frog said no and focus then removed their published games from many stores. Frog was at least able to put their games back on said store themselves. The weird thing is that focus basically worked man hours to remove said game out of spite...
this is like a babysitter claiming parental rights to kids just because she babysat them for a year.
I get qhat you say, but some people need to have the point beaten that well, plus with the current climate of people getting cancelled for one single "bad" word he's gotta be extra clear on what he says
More like a babysitter claiming parental rights to the kids after getting paid for it and not serving them dinner.
That has actually happened a few times in real life.
Once with grandparents who believed they should raise the kid because religion.
Indie developer issuing a lawsuit? GOOD! They deserved all of it, these developers work their blood, sweat and tears off to make a quality product and they deserve all the payment, they should not be treated as slaves to make product, these publishers think that developers are their slaves and own the developers property? Hell no, these publishers deserve to feel the pain of financial starvation.
This is a situation I've heard of happening all the time, a big publisher decides to steal an ip from a small studio by stopping payment then bankrupting them into oblivion with frivolous lawsuits. Publishers are the scum of the games industry.
A wise Ocelot once said "i never trust a frenchmen"
Hitler once said: Totally not Racist
@@pierrolosapio1042 found the frenchman
Hahaha
@@pierrolosapio1042 Hitler was a sensitive man
Right, we should only trust the word of fictional video game characters instead.
Frogware deserves better they make interesting unique games that others won't risk to make. I've enjoyed all the Sherlock Holmes games as well as the sinking city I hope they recover and maybe seek self publishing
Oof self publishing is a hell of a hurdle
Though i gotta say... the new Sherlock game doesn't look at all interesting to me. They have "Young Sherlock Holmes"... at the end of hte 19th Century. First time we meet Sherlock Holmes, he already is established (though not famous) and Watson had returned from the Anglo-Afghan War a year prior. So we're in the early 1880s. A Study in Scarlet had been released in 1887.
And the design... it just doesn't look like Sherlock Holmes. Crimes and Punishment IMHO has the best Holmes and Watson design for the Frogware games.
I know it has nothing to do with the Arse Publisher issue, but i wanted to say it :D
@@undertakernumberone1 nice to hear good guy epic saved them though
@@dream6562 Fuck Epic. Epic is the "good guy" that at the end of the RPG session turns out to have been the big bad all along.
Or to put it in the immortal Words of Vincent Kennedy McMahon: "IT'S ME, AUSTIN! IT'S ME, AUSTIN! IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, AUSTIN!"
@@dream6562 EPIC has screwed over many stuff over, they are far from being a Saint.
They're literally the "You made this? I made this." picture. Honestly though, I don't even know what to say. I'm frustrated. This is insane.
This concerns me IMMENSELY for the upcoming Werewolf the Apocolypse Earthblood game as it is being published by NACON as well.
As well as the new Vampire: The Masquerade title
@@chrispyk4456
Ehhh, White Wolf has good lawyers and a strong hold on IP management, so that shouldn't be a problem. It is very clear that the publisher/developer are just leasing the rights.
Bloodlines, though, has already hit an issue that calls its quality in to question, having Fired its creative staff a few weeks ago.
@@chrispyk4456 vampire masquerade bloodline is not made by nacon
@@Hitman2b Hence the publisher part at @Gino The Kaiju's comment. They're the one that do the packaging, distributes, etc, not the one who make it.
@@mimicinabox2547 yeah but the publisher is paradox interactive for masquarade
So the ugly legal battle over The Sinking City was more of a Lovecraftian nightmare than the game itself. Ironic, isn't it?
I think their next game ought to be based on the works on Kafka.
@@slakh0rn The "ugly" legal battle is like most legal battles with one or two greedy focks. There's nothing Lovecraftian about this at all, I default to thinking you or anyone else would do wrong if you were handed a mass amount of cash. Why would I assume anyone other than me has integrity at that high a level of gain? It's simple logic, not lovecraftian at all.
@@Resanctify You sound a lot like the chief cultist of a lovecraftian short story.
@@SidereusOfTheFallen Really, does the chief cultist think more logically than emotionally or something? Because you guys sound as stupid as I remember most of the cult peons sounding. " dis is luvcrafshun, dats luvcrashun".
Nothing is Lovecraftian just because "iz baddd" you doofuses aren't specifically lovecraftian because you're as braindead as the peon cultists either, you just share a trait with em like you do with many of literatures dumb henchmen or peasant type characters.
@@Resanctify Just stop
Sounds like Frogwares should just go self-publishing. Or in other words: truly indie.
Easier said than done one of the common ways of self-publishing it's to start crowdfunding but really you still have a publisher everyone who back the project and they usually expect something from
Or fold. In their situation I would just fold because I am a coward.
@@csmead209 or go through the legal system to take back your IP and recoup all the money that they owe you like how they are doing
Just go digital devolver i see no wrong there.
@@cordeliacentauri1737 the issue is how to get attention for your game if they do self-published now due to all of this drama and just plain bad luck they're having more than likely they will succeed but only because this is becoming such a big story look at Star citizenfor example the only reason that game became as big as it did is due to who started the project
It’s like a suicide move on the publisher’s part. Like, wtf they do this for?
Publishers:
Gain:
Publicity
Loss:
The respect and support of gamers
Their reputation
Possible future contracts of other Devs
Lawsuits losing them money
I’m still lost...
They were banking on muscling over the dev fast enough that they could get away with it
They were hoping to get through the whole think quickly and dirty with the devs hopefully being too broke or dependent on BB to file suit.
If it had worked they would have gotten:
A new and basically free intellectual property to work with.
The income from the game and the board game.
Let me assure you that no publicity is "bad". As long as the name of the publisher is out there, they can benefit from it; it doesn't matter if it is associated with good or bad things.
@@snipdeath thats not true and history has shown time and time again that bad publicit can kill a company
@@valletas more so when its small, ea and acti have mostly bad publicity yet they make a fuck ton of money.
I loved the sinking city on switch regardless of a couple technical problems it was a fun interesting experience, I hope their legal problems are settled soon. I want to see more from them in the future.
The game had some serious technical and conceptual issues but i do agree i loved the concept as a die hard H.P Lovecraft fan(i literally have a tattoo of the elder sign and the death may die quote). Its sad anoth3r game like this may n3ver be attempted.
Same I knew I was buying an indie game and I loved it for what it was, are there issues with the game, yes but I enjoyed it regardless
Awesome game that I enjoyed from it’s first minute all the way to the end credits besides it’s technical flaws. I played it on Switch and had a great time. Looking forward to next Sherlock Holmes entry.
What kind of flaws can I expect? I really want to try it out
@@BubbyoftheMountain I experienced rough frame rate drops and muddy textures that popped sharpish with a 30 sec delay
This seriously reminds me of the situation with Harmony Gold and the Macross Franchise.
Boy, that’s an obscure reference these days! But I get exactly what you mean.
I bought the game at launch and if Frogware re-releases the game without scumbag publishers milking them down, I'll buy it again.
They are a talented studio, all the crap surrounding them is depressing and have to finish.
They self-published the game on Switch and Origin so you can buy it on those platforms as well as directly from their website if you want to support them
Damn, this is messed up, with Indie devs getting scammed by publishers, the Publishers will have to work harder then ever to earn their trust.
I really hope Frogwares gets the money they are owed, but knowing court proceedings a little, this can drag on for years and years before they even get a penny.
Maybe you can make a video on the recent conroversy with Jagex where they released an MTX lootbox promotion alongside with an ingame promotion where you can get rerolls at on your lootboxes for half the price and in short that allowed players to reroll their rewards virtually forever leading to people getting unlimited free stuff, but jagex imposed a ban on players that did this, but it left a lot of backlash since no player really bugged their way to that since the they were obtained by legitimate means given by jagex.
This created controversy among the players because jagex argued players were getting an unfair advantage from it when yet the entire promotion was based on p2w which is inherently a system of unfair advantage to wealthy players. It really created this moral grey area of what is considered an exploit and players getting afraid to buy lootboxes in the future since they are afraid jagex might arbitrarily decide you gained to much from their promotion and thus take away your rewards and possibly ban you.
Sounds like ea levels of scumminess!
I don't think EA would even go this far. The moment EA crosses this line, they are done.
@@Xport9, I don't know. They have done very similar stuff to this in the past.
@@tyrbaan7295 EA usually doesn't just attempt to steal IP's like that. Instead they acquire the studio behind it, then slowly wreck it through gross avaricious mismanagement and eventually dissolve it, charging another one of their studios with developing highly monetized games with the IP until the franchise as a whole is milked to death.
Nasty enough as it may be, it's technically legal whereas no lawyer on the planet can save you infront of courts if you just breach your contract and then proceed and try and use the IP as if it actually was yours like BB did.
What EA *might* occasionally do is intentionally try to make a game that they are supposed to publish flop, hoping that this will get the studio that's developing the game into hot water financially so they can be bought for cheap. I believe this would technically also be illegal but it can be difficult to prove that your publisher was intentionally doing a bad job at distributing your game.
Yeah, EA could totally fuck an indie studio but not like this. They even have a program to support those kinds of games so it would really blow up in their face if somehow this happened
Lol, big companies will never do this. They are the only one you can trust to not breach contract.
As a Game developer student I have been warned multiple times that if you make deal with publisher, check that deal with lawyer before accepting it. I see even more why.
Sounds from this that even if you do they still might just renege on the deal. You gotta be prepared to fight a legal battle afterwards as well.
As a French, I feel ashamed by the scammy behavior of one of our national publisher.
I present my sinceres apologies to FrogWares and hope the Sinking City will find another more trustworthy publisher.
Over-saturated market, loss of IP control, why does this remind me of 1983?
@MrStruggle The video game market crashed hard in '83.
@@Gestersmek because of E.T. 🤣👌
I guess there's a landfill in the New Mexico with Nacon's name on it.
The market will never crash at leats not like in the past
The industry is just too big to fail
@@valletas Nothing is ever too big to fail. That's the sort of thinking that CAUSES catastrophic failures.
Shame. I like Frogwares. Sinking City while flawed to high heaven was unique and ambitious and I enjoyed it alot.
Same. I could see the route this game was going. This could have eventually been the Lovecraftian Fallout.
I've never even heard of BigBen/Nacon before this whole event. Altho to be fair, I've never heard of Frogwares either.
Nacon is a pretty big publisher and they aren't that scummy
@@gamingwithblueberry4638 I looked up there catalogue and it looks like mainly BS easy to pump out sports and racing games. Seems pretty scummy to me but idrk
Nacon? Isnt that the “elite” ps4 controller manufacturer?
@@m1l22 I guess lol. They make shitty games too
To give you an idea, here, Big Ben, in the video game circles, is likened to crap.
BigBen:"Daddy i did it just like you told me!"
EA:"im proud of you"
Hey, they have the same goal but their way of acquiring IP is different. Still, both are pieces of shit :D
They share the same goal but use different methods.
Big Ben/ Nacon need to be sued for false representation, trademark infringement, theft of IP, theft in general, and anything else Frogwares can think of. A company that does that deserves to be sued into oblivion.
If all of these accusations are true, I hope Frogware gets a great settlement out of this. This are some absolutely terrible behavior. Nacon signed a contract--they should live up to it. And when someone terminates a contract with you, you need to honor that termination.
Big Ben will mysteriously go bankrupt with no assets to be sold
Remember, they have "con" in the name for a reason.
They need to show their contract to the publisher so the TH-cam copyright lawyers can help em.
N*CON is also a major distributor of r*nsomware I believe. Ha. R*nsomware.
I really love their Sherloc Holmes games, while Sinking City was kinda... meh? With that empty "open world" stuff, I still enjoyed the story and being a actual detective of sorts.
I always saw the open world as a means to flesh out the investigation system. You don't have a way point pointing you places as the quest updates. You have to map out where places are from the clues you gather. My main complaint is the frequent reuse of assets, which makes all the interiors identical to one and other, which hurts the side quests.
The open world isn't to explore and do stuff in like gta or anything like that. It's just the setting for the game.
EA : We don’t need to play dirty indirectly, just do it obviously.
They have the means to do it 'legally' =/
Thank you so much for covering this, I was wondering why it was no longer on the steam store. Poor dudes can't catch a break.
Frogwares is a great dev. I wish them all the best.
Frogwears: *makes The Sinking City*
NACON: You made this?
Frogwears: *gives to NACON to publish*
NACON: ... I made this.
Asking for source code sounds a lot like when I do commission art work and folks want a version of the finished piece without a watermark before payment.
But I'll give you all the exposure. You can feed your family with exposure, right?
cowsandturtles I think that every time its asked. Smh
You have to understand that publishers exist solely to make money from the video game industry. We act surprised when they do something scummy but it shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point.
YEP
Kudos to Frogwares not caving into the pressure their publisher was trying to pull on the games THEY owned legally.
Ho? Publishers causing problems?
Perhaps you want your stonks to sink as well?
Got that sinking feeling?
Stonking City™️
An extremely hostile take over dafuq
*This is something Lovecraft might have written and I think it fits with the theme of this situation.* 👇
From the perspective of Frogwares;
As I worked diligently I began to realize I wasn't paid for the fruits of my labor.
A massive parasite hung above me drinking my blood and I hadn't realized it until it was far too late.
It was to steal my essence entirely by taking the foundation of my being.
Not only my blood but also my bones were to be a feast for this festering monster that had injected it's venom into me.
The venom I needed to survive.
I would fight back but how could I even hope to survive against such a ravenous creature as bigben nacon?
A monster with no face.
A tyrant with no need of a throne.
@15:41 Please guys stop saying "Coup de gras" it means something like "Hit of fat" which doesn't mean anything. "Coup de grâce" actually means "Fatal blow" and is pronounced "Koo duh grass".
Have you seen a germanic-based language speaker say "duh" with accuracy or at least decent comprehension?
Isn't it "stroke of grace" ? And Ccording to Oxford dictionary, it is "fatal blow"
@@HyperChara Maybe in the strictly literal sense, but when we say "coup de grâce" it always means "fatal blow" or "finishing blow"...
@@yibithehispanic well I mean the English way of making the "duh" sound, you know, when you say "Duh??" xD
@@Tchumfak But our duh is different from the english speakers, our duh is more soft while they pronounce it like "duth"
ive been playing frogware's games since Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. Although the gameplay are sometimes clunky, i can always feel how much love was poured into their games. It is really a shame they are still struggling like this, they don't deserve this.
If they stole a million euros, essentially, and refuse to give it back to frogwares, why are they not in jail?
This sounds alot like "we thought we could get away with it so its alright"
Based on this and similar stories Yong's covered, some of these Publishers behave like the Mafia towards Indie Devs.
Sounds like the obvious solution is to make a Mafia union and go Frank Sheeran on this whole mess.
headlines be all "12 simultaneous car accidents have taken the lives of 12 separate scummy IP stealing mogels, and in related news game developers are finally given the respect they deserve with laws that protect them from the abuse that the rest of the working world (outside china) has had to protect them for over 50 years, and the ceo of Activision is now in an oil drum somewhere in the ocean next to the remains of Jimmy Hoffa."
No one fondly remembers the violence the mob brought but everyone fondly remembers the days where businessmen damn well knew if they fucked around then someone would make them disappear.
That's deeply concerning to say the least 😬 just the other day I had a job interview at a newly founded developer studio full of nice and passionate guys that are currently making his very first game in partnership with Nacon/BBI. If the publisher did this with Frogware, what's stopping them to do the same thing with other studios? And nobody deserves this treatment.
Just because "con" is in their name doesn't make this okay. I'm sick of these shady publishers fucking over devs. Especially indie devs. And on top of everything, they hide behind COVID...disgusting. I was just going to buy the sinking city too, but I'm not going to purchase it in a way that doesn't support Frogwares. They put a lot of love and effort into their games and storytelling and deserve to be compensated for that. I'm glad I didn't buy it sooner. I'm happy to wait.
Hope they manage to sue Nacon out of existence. Definitely looks like Nacon tried to steal the game.
Just cut out these leeching middle-men aka publishers.... Go the IO Interactive way.
Thanks for the coverage on this story Yong. Hope Frog wares manages to obtain the remaining loyalties they are owed from BigBen.
I was waiting for this to be released on Steam, fortunately they have a DRM free version available on their website
Gaming needs some proper publishers, if we keep funding the likes of EA, Activision, Epic, Take-Two, Ubisoft, etc. then the industry will keep sinking to new lows.
If Nacon controllers are anything to go by, this doesn't surprise me one bit
@S I bought the original revolution pro controller, it came out of the box with broken acceleration on the right stick, it took months for them to fix it with a software update, plus the L1 and R1 buttons are terrible, I usually use them for aiming and shooting and had to switch to the triggers
I sincerely hope Frogwares has a watertight case and that they didn't leave any loopholes in the contract. Love Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes games and was gonna get Sinking City too sometime. I guess I'll show my support and get it from their site right now.
Big Ben/NACON deserves to be punished for this. What they are doing is criminal.
Having said that, I have very little(if any) sympathy for Frogwares. They got screwed over by a publisher for the sake of profit and then the next game they make, they make an exclusivity deal with Epic and screw over fans for the sake of profit.
I mean, they need that money after being screwed over twice, I'd imagine.
just bought it on switch yesterday, glad my payment got to the developers and not the scummy publishers.
I hope this mess is fixed as soon as possible so that I can buy The Sinking City on Steam.
Man I was waiting for this. Thanks for covering this up Yong 👍🏻
Like, what was the point in any of this? What good could have come from targeting these devs specificially and screwing them over?
The point was to deliberately bankrupt the developer studio, then buy up their assets and poach their workers to work for the publisher's in-house studios.
When money is involved, the brain becomes extinct
Amazon does the same thing. The plan was to bankrupt the studio take all their assets and take all their employees under the publisher's own studio.
@@Legion849 Same with EA
Isn't Big Ben the company that publishes the WRC games?
Sounds like BigBen/Nacon has gone to the School of EA!
About the box art: I have the EU-Version of The Sinking City and the Frogwares-Logo is printed on the front cover. Bought the game on release day.
When a deal agreed is broken by a party, there should be violence. Especially in this instance. This is not only about money and providing for your family, this is a lesson that there are consequences. Lawsuits and bad press only go so far. My blood BOILS for this poor developer, if even half of the statement is true. Unacceptable in any industry, gaming or otherwise.
This is good info, thanks, I am working in my first big game and may need a publisher myself.
Nacon: The cheque is in the mail.
It is still ongoing. Nacon just released "The Sinking City" on Steam without the permission of Frogwares.
Ah i was waiting for this to be announced
Sinking city was v good for an indie developer who undoubtedly had numerous troubles, did a good job making a lovecraftian world while also acknowledging he was not a good person and that was reflected in his work. Combat is janky but these guys did those Sherlock Holmes games so the detective stuff and overall story is very good imo.
Still haven't played Sinking City, hope I get the chance.
Its for sale on PC and Switch right now.
Although no clue what the ETA is on Xbox and PS
kintustis I played it. It’s actually pretty good. Best lovecraftian game I’ve played in a long, long time.
@@jaydenrock it really is the best one in a long time. I played it right after Call of Cthulhu and man it was so much better. Loved the world...
One thing I'd like to mention. I bought a physical copy of The Sinking City on PS4, French version, Day One edition.
Frogwares' logo is clearly visible next to Bigben's on the front.
On the back, the box states exactly this: "The Sinking City (c)2019 Frogwares. Published by Bigben Interactive. Developed by Frogwares."
This leaves no doubt about who owns the IP and who made the game: Frogwares. BUT it also contradicts certain statements in Frogwares' open letter.
I also can't seem to find any information about the alleged Sinking City board game. Not from the Internet. Not from local (and well informed) specialised board game stores.
So while I wish Frogwares all the best and really liked both The Sinking City and Sherlock Holmes: the Devil's Daughter, I feel that the situation is not as clear cut as they make it to be.
Still. Nacon's reaction is clumsy at best and reeks of arrogance and legalese.
Publishers these days are just a middle man, you don't need them. Release your games digitally, its only $100 fee on Steam then use your cut to release a physical copy later. It's not the early 2000's anymore, you don't need to sell physical copies right away. you can do that later after you build your up your revenue like Minecraft did starting out with just a few indie developers selling the game on their own website before the console versions. Also CD Projekt Red learned to self publish and their games have incredible value for $60 without any greedy publishers.
Thanks for the update.
P.S : Lol coup de grâce is pronounced : coup de "graSS"
Hey Yong, when Frogwares finally gets their situation sorted and their revenue stream secured and put in place why don't you do a review of their games in order to give them a chance to make some money. Why not use your platform to help games companies find customers who appreciate all of their hard work.
I think we should have a death penalty for corporations. If a business engages in serious enough conduct, it should be forcibly liquidated and disbanded, with the proceeds going towards redress for the victims. One million euros is a lot of money.
these publishers should be put on a public blacklist so that devs know who to work with.
AND frogwares should countersue the publisher with the revenue they get from sales on the website to pay for legal fees.
Being French, and having seen those laws being made in place, I can tell you that what BBI/Nacon stated is pure BS.
It kinda sounds like they expected frogwares to give them the source code, or fail from lack of funds. Either of which meaning nacon could take the code for their own lovecraftian game, and when frogwares actually pulled through in spite of the negligence of the publisher, they instead tried to annex the IP and sweep frogwares under the rug. It's so stunningly brazen I'm almost impressed.
Thankful someone covered this story. Thanks Yong!
Well, then, guess I will just take it upon myself to finally buy The Devil's Daughter and The Sinking City. Wanna help the lads.
One could see the clear talent and effort put into The Sinking City. We now also have an explanation for the bugs and jank: they weren't necessarily lazy, they were just massive screwed over by some assholes. What a shame.
Sounds like they need to do the smart thing and self publish.
I always wonder about situations like these what must be going on in the heads of these publishers. Imagine sitting down and writing out these illegal/ridiculous demands from a dev studio that you know isn't that rich. How morally bankrupt do you need to be to do stuff like this?
You should talk about Niantic's cash grab system with the introduction of mega evolution in Pokémon Go.
This is happening more often than you think, i'm pretty sure the same thing happened with Chucklefish over Wargroove.
Well, I hope their lawsuit goes well and they get millions from this scummy company.
I’d say that depends on how many lawyers the publisher has, or if they try to settle.
@@annabella1650 idk, sounds like a pretty good case for frog
@TheMock5000
It’s a good case, but the issue is that it depends on how well the company’s lawyers can bs and find loopholes. I’d like this to go well for Frog, and hopefully it does because publishers need to not steal IPs.
Very Scummy levels of greed.
May Frogware get Justice.
Obligatory, “I have altered the deal,” comment.
Big Ben/Nacon seems to have trouble realizing licensing IP is not the same as owning it. Thus they do not acknowlage that there are limits in what they can do with it.
Case in point, almost a year ago they announced they would be publishing a new Blood Bowl game. In that announcement they leaked that there would be a new rule set for the popular table top version. The issue with this is Blood Bowl is owned by Games Workshop, one for the largest game companies in the world, and they are known to be extremely controlling of their IPs. Safe to say they were not pleased, and I speculate there were some "gun point" renegotiations in response
[Reputation with EA has gone up]
Definitely not
Nacon does know this does not help them at all; it will tank that reputation of theirs. And actually it puts a spotlight on them when many people were not aware. They might lose contracts due to the way they've handled this. Already, Focus Interactive has a horrible reputation and is a cautionary tale. Man, 2020 has ended with 3 of these French companies in the video games industry being viewed in a bad light.