Following this, they claim they received "incomplete and undocumented" income reports from Nacon, and noticed that the copyright info on various storefronts had changed to imply that Nacon (or Bigben Interactive, at the time) were the legal owners of the game. "įrogwares filed a lawsuit against Nacon last August. "A retroactive cancellation on not delivering a product on time that is already out in the market is not acceptable. "After we refused to comply, we stopped receiving financial contributions for over 4 months," they say.Īfter The Sinking City launched on June 27th last year, Frogwares say they received a letter from Nacon telling them that the game's milestones (major events during a game's development to track progress) that were previously approved were being cancelled, "meaning that we would not receive any profit from the sales of the game", they write. Frogwares refused this, as they say Nacon were only the licensee for the game, meaning they were to sell it, not "develop and co-create it". They also claim that Nacon asked them to provide a competing game developer with the source code of The Sinking City. Then a share of revenue starting at the first euro or dollar."Īccording to Frogwares, however, this agreement was not properly honoured.ĭuring the rest of The Sinking City's production, Nacon were allegedly "hundreds of days behind in payments", with Frogwares claiming to have issued the company multiple formal notices to get the money they were owed. "We signed the deal on those terms and we would receive part payments for each production milestone completed. The intellectual property would still belong to Frogwares, which has always been the only producer and owner of its games, including The Sinking City," Frogwares' statement reads. In exchange for a financial contribution to the development, we gave them the right to sell and commercialize the game on 4 platforms - Xbox One, PS4, Steam and later, Epic Games Store. "In 2017 we signed The Sinking City contract as a licensing agreement with BigBen/Nacon, two years after the start of production. On top of that, the developers claim Nacon owes them "roughly 1 million euros" (around £900,000) in unpaid royalties, after collecting revenue from the game's sales on Frogwares' behalf. In an open letter published today, the game's developers, Frogwares say they've been going through legal disputes with publishing company, Nacon (formerly Bigben Interactive), over funding and copyright issues with their Lovecraftian RPG.įrogwares allege that Nacon missed payments to the devs during the game's production, and wrongly tried to claim copyright of it after its release. Over the last few months, The Sinking City has been disappearing from digital storefronts. Update: Nacon have said they "emphatically" reject Frogwares' open letter, claiming they are attempting to "discredit Nacon in the eyes of the public and professionals alike".
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