Lovecraftian detective game The Sinking City, released in 2019, was a very okay investigative adventure: « An occasionally entertaining detective game blighted by poor writing, rote combat, and a dreary open world, » is how we described it in our 66% review. Earlier this year, however, it disappeared from several storefronts including Steam and GOG, with no explanation as to why.Today, developer Frogwares finally spoke out about the matter, releasing a lengthy statement saying that the removal was the result of a legal dispute with publisher Nacon, formerly known as Bigben Interactive. The two companies signed a deal in 2017 granting Nacon the right to « sell and commercialize » the game on consoles and PC in exchange for payments based on production milestones—a fairly standard arrangement, from the sound of it—while actual ownership of the game would remain with Frogwares.But according to the claim, Nacon was consistently late with payments, particularly after the publisher purchased a studio working on another Lovecraftian game—possibly Cyanide, which Nacon acquired a few months ahead of the 2018 release of Call of Cthulhu. After the acquisition, Nacon allegedly demanded that Frogwares turn over the source code to The Sinking City. »Once again, BBI/Nacon does not own the IP—they are a licensee. They sell the game—not develop and co-create it, » Frogwares said. « After we refused to comply, we stopped receiving financial contributions for over 4 months. »Following the release of The Sinking City in June 2019, Frogwares said Nacon attempted to cancel previously-approved milestones, meaning that it would not receive any profit on the sale of the game. This was the action that resulted in the lawsuit: « A retroactive cancellation on not delivering a product on time that is already out in the market is not acceptable, » the studio said.After the suit was filed, Frogwares said it found numerous inconsistencies in income reports that made it impossible to determine whether sales or revenues were being properly calculated. It also discovered that some copyright notices were incorrect, and that the Frogwares logo had been removed from some PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game covers and marketing materials, giving the impression that Nacon and not Frogwares owned the property. There was even a tabletop RPG produced without the studio's knowledge. »We tried to contact BigBen/Nacon for 11 months and resolve these issues, but we have not received any satisfactory response from their representatives, » Frogwares said.
