The Sinking City, a detective game inspired by author H.P. Lovecraft, has been caught in the middle of a dispute between Nacon, the game’s publisher, and Frogwares, the game’s developer. Just a year after its release in 2019, The Sinking City was delisted from most digital stores. The game was recently put back on the Xbox Store after a French court ruled in favor of Nacon in this nasty quarrel. However, the game will not be back on Steam or PlayStation until a later date.
According to developer Frogwares, the falling-out with their publisher started during production. They made an agreement with Nacon that granted the publisher the right to sell the game in exchange for a financial contribution to development, as well as “payments for each production milestone completed.” However, Frogwares claims that Nacon did not honor that agreement:
During production, BBI/Nacon was hundreds and hundreds of days behind in payments in total. Each sum due on average being 40 days late, while our milestones were always on time and approved by the licensee. We had to issue formal notices multiple times so that we were able to receive the money that was owed to us.
Nacon has also released a statement over The Sinking City issue. The statement saying the Paris Court of Appeal ruled “that Frogwares had terminated the contract in a “manifestly unlawful” manner and, as a result, ordered, as a “precautionary measure, the continuation of the contract (…) until its term or until a decision is made on the breach of this contract and ordered Frogwares Ireland to refrain from any action on the breach of this contract and ordered Frogwares Ireland to refrain from any action that impedes this continuation (…).”
This ruling basically means Frogwares must comply with their original contract, giving Nacon the ability to sell the game again The situation is definitely messy, but if you weren’t able to grab The Sinking City before its delisting, you might be in luck. The Sinking City is still available for the Nintendo Switch and can be found on Origin and Gamesplanet.