Publishers Nacon have responded to Frogwares’ allegation that they pirated The Sinking City to put it on Steam.
In case you’ve missed any of the previous drama, the story thus far is this. Nacon worked with Frogwares to publish The Sinking City, a Lovecraftian action adventure game that was published in mid 2019. However, Frogwares have since accused Nacon of withholding money they’re owed and are pursuing the matter through the French courts.
But it’s The Sinking City’s PC incarnation that’s been the subject of most drama to date. Nacon put the game up on Steam and it was removed due to a DMCA claim from Frogwares. It was added again, but it was removed from sale once more. Nacon tried again, which has lead to the recent accusations of piracy.
As of the time of writing, Frogwares have once again had The Sinking City removed from the Steam store and Nacon have issued a statement addressing the situation, claiming that:
“Despite this blocking situation created exclusively by FROGWARES, NACON has allowed players to access the game on STEAM while still expressly indicating the ownership of FROGWARES’ rights to the game. FROGWARES will also receive the royalties generated by STEAM sales.”
“By encouraging the gaming community via Twitter not to buy the game on STEAM, FROGWARES is once again sabotaging our investments in the game.”
There’s more to the statement, but the the thrust of Nacon’s response seems to be that they invested heavily in The Sinking City and that, despite the shenanigans, Frogwares will still receive a portion of each sale (though how big that is we don’t know).
They also mention that their contract apparently gives them the right to have the game adapted by a third party, but Frogwares have accused them of actually modifying the title to remove Frogwares’ own logo, so whether that’d fall under ‘adaption’ is questionable.
With Coronavirus slowing legal proceedings down, so it could be a good long while before this is all settled. We’ll keep you updated on further developments and, believe us, we expect to hear a lot more about this.
