Frogwares publicizes its fight with BigBen Interactive.
The Sinking City is the 2019 action-adventure game developed by Frogwares of the Sherlock Holmes games fame. If you’re looking to buy The Sinking City well odds are you’re not going to find it on your preferred store. Definitely if you’re looking to purchase it on Xbox, PlayStation, or Steam.
The Lovecraftian horror title has been delisted from several platforms at the request of its developer Frogwares over numerous breaches of contract acted out by publisher BigBen Interactive. In a lengthy news post published today, Frogwares dives into the gritty details including removal of credits, failure to make payments, retroactive cancellation of milestones, and even an unauthorized attempt to put the game on subscription service Utomik without permission. BigBen apparently went as far as buying up dozens of domain names for Frogwares IPs and publishing a tabletop RPG with The Sinking City name.
Good news is that some gamers can still buy The Sinking City in the form of a DRM-free version direct from the developer, as well as the Switch version. Frogwares ends its piece with a statement of commitment to ending bad practices in the game industry.
“It is a shame that in such a creative industry there is so much energy wasted because of such practices. That’s why we decided to write this open letter. We hope that this transparency will help everyone to be aware of what is really going on behind the scenes. We only have one goal: helping to banish bad practices by speaking freely about them, instead of remaining subject to the code of silence. We know that we are not the only ones in this situation. This is our way to help the video game industry become more ethical.”
Source: Frogwares.com (thanks to SirViolentDeath for pointing a finger to this story)
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