Sinking City developer Frogwares has accused publisher Nacon of pirating the game and allegedly loading an illegal copy on Steam. Nacon posted a version of the Lovecraftian RPG on Valve’s store window on Friday, which was quickly followed by Frogwares urging fans not to buy it. The two have been embroiled in a messy legal dispute over the game since last year. The developers believe that Nacon ‘cracked, hacked, changed the code and content of the game’ to put it on Steam and allegedly prevented Frogwares from making money from a game they claimed to own.
Frogwares and Nacon have been embroiled in a legal dispute since the summer of last year. Initially, Frogwares claimed that Nacon breached their contract during the development of the game by missing payments, and allegedly tried to claim the copyright of the game as their own.
The developers sold the game out of some digital store windows to stop the sales being sold to Nacon. In October, however, the French courts ruled that it had terminated their contract with the publisher illegally, and they had to play well with them until the legal dispute was sorted out.
The Sinking City re-appeared in digital stores in January, but the version that went up on Steam mysteriously disappeared again shortly thereafter. It only returned last Friday, and now the developers claim that this new version is a pirate that Nacon allegedly stole from another store window.
In a blog post, Frogwares claims that the version of the game that is currently on Steam is one that was originally purchased from Gamesplanet. They claim that Nacon changed it to remove Gamesplanet watermarks and logos, as well as advertisements for Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes game.
“In order to make changes, Nacon had only one way: to decompile or hack the game using a secret key created by Frogwares, since the entire contents of the game with an Epic Unreal Engine- encryption system is archived, “say the developers.
“To be clear, it is burglary and when burglary is intended to steal a product and make money with it, it is called piracy or forgery. To achieve this goal, programmers with serious skills must be involved. It is not self-employed. by inexperienced people, it is done by programmers who know Unreal engine well. ‘
They explain the technology of everything in more detail, which you can read in the blog post, or get an idea of this video layout they made.
“We believe Nacon did this to hide the fraudulent exploitation of the game on Steam, but also on other portals to which they intend to send the game. Nacon wants Frogwares or anyone, including the French Justice, never to the true extent of their exploitation of the game, ‘says Frogwares.
The developers emphasize that they “still fully trust Steam and Gamesplanet”. They believe that Nacon legally bought The Sinking City on Gamesplanet before allegedly hacking it, and that Steam could have no way of knowing the game was presumably pirated.
“Nacon has proven that they are willing to do anything to serve their interests, including illegal action. They ignored the Justice Department’s decision and bypassed them and The Sinking City Pirate to overthrow their partners, Steam, in the first place. deceived, “said Frogwares. say.
“There’s long-term damage we need to take care of, Nacon unpacked our data, stole and used our source code. Nacon can create a new version of The Sinking City using our assets; they can resell, reuse, recycle our content and our tools etc. ”
Last night, Nacon responded to Frogwares’ comments, asking players not to buy the game on Steam. Here is their statement:
“We regret that Frogwares continues to disrupt the release of Sinking City. It was Frogwares who came to Nacon to request funding for the development of the game, and to date, more than 10 million euros have been donated by Nacon. Frogwares Paid Frogwares, which relied on our marketing and promotional teams, representing thousands of hours of work and several million euros of investment, now that the game has been fully developed and published, largely thanks to Nacon’s money and work, Frogwares review it.the terms of the contract are to their only advantage.It’s easy to play the victim, but all we want is for Frogwares to respect its obligations in the contract and as claimed by the courts.
“As for the feedback on the release of Sinking City on Steam, it’s an official and complete release. However, due to a lack of collaboration with Frogwares, we are unable to integrate steam-specific features (cloud saving / performance). So, this “version contains only the base game, without any additional content. Despite this, we have organized the version so that fans on Steam can enjoy the game.”
Nacon has not yet responded to the piracy allegation. I contacted them for comment and will update this post when I hear it.