The adventure game of Frogwares taking place in the universe Cthulien is no longer available. The reason is very simple : Cthulu exterminated everything … No, it’s much more subtle than that. Nothing to do with the winged humanoid octopus of H. P. Lovecraft, this is a real war between the developers of The Sinking City and the editor of the latter, Big Ben Interactive / Nacon. A battle which has lasted for eleven months and which ended with the withdrawal of the title on certain platforms, in particular on PlayStation 4 and on PC. Let’s go back in time …
Back in 2017 when Frogwares had signed a good understanding contract with his publisher. In exchange for the marketing and sale of their production by Nacon, the studio would receive shares for each major advance in development in addition to the first euro / dollar collected when the game was released. However, intellectual property still remained with Frogwares and him alone.
In 2017, we signed The Sinking City as a license agreement with BigBen / Nacon, 2 years after the start of production. In exchange for a financial contribution to the development, we gave them the right to sell and market the game on 4 platforms: Xbox One, PS4, Steam and later, the Epic Games Store. The intellectual property would still belong to Frogwares, which has always been the sole producer and owner of its games, including The Sinking City. We signed the agreement on these terms and we received partial payments for each production step completed. Then a share of the income from the first euro or dollar collected. So everything was fine, until the start of the collaboration.
Except that everything did not go as planned. Cthulu didn’t even add his two cents to the deal. From the start, Nacon did not honor its commitments. Indeed, the publisher was “hundreds of days late on payments” according to the studio. The French firm has also allowed itself to appropriate the development rights of the game on the covers or on various online shopping sites. Frogwares then had no choice but to request the withdrawal of the title so that the French publisher no longer receives any income from it.
Given these breaches, persistent obstacles, and reluctance to cooperate, Frogwares’ last resort was to request the removal of The Sinking City from all remaining stores to at least stop any further sale to BBI / Nacon.
We may be witnessing here a new summer soap opera like a Epic Games against Apple. Pending a future response from Nacon, you can pick up the physical PS4 edition of The Sinking City. As of this writing, the title is for € 1.99 at Micromania (yes, yes, you read that correctly)!
| Laurent F. Writer Intern |
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| Big fan of video games, new technologies and geek culture. I fully assume myself as a Geek and a Gamer. Addicted to Monster Hunter and the Darksiders saga. Where is the evidence? Well, I spent almost 3000 hours on MH3U and I finished Darksiders 2 at least 12 times (I stopped counting …) |
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