[HN Gopher] Publisher Nacon Cracked and Pirated Our Game: The Si...
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Publisher Nacon Cracked and Pirated Our Game: The Sinking City
Author : jccalhoun
Score : 393 points
Date : 2021-03-02 03:17 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (frogwares.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (frogwares.com)
| niea_11 wrote:
| Press release from Nacon about the dispute (5 Jan 2021) :
|
| https://corporate.nacongaming.com/en/press/the-sinking-city-...
|
| I'm not sure if the court decision gives them the right to do
| what they did (talking about Nacon).
| cestith wrote:
| IANAL and I'm certainly not intimately familiar with French
| law. However, I think since they're saying Frogwares is in
| breach and has been ordered by the court to continue the
| contract that Nacon's course of action here should be to tell
| the court Frogwares isn't fulfilling the terms of the contract.
| I don't believe anywhere in the economically developed
| countries of the world is it okay to decide on your own
| vigilante solution and pursue it in violation of other laws.
| random5634 wrote:
| PDF here
|
| https://corporate.nacongaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01...
|
| This is not someone in China cracking and rebranding things
| niea_11 wrote:
| Still, the court ordered frogwares to give the binaries to
| Nacon. They didn't give permission to Nacon to download and
| patch a binary, from another distributor, which is probably
| provided under a EULA that forbids what they did.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| And according to this post, they didn't even get the right
| binarys. They got one for a deluxe version of the game that
| was never contracted to them to begin with.
| juskrey wrote:
| I was working near some game publishers many many years ago, and
| the case when they would crack the game in order to
| publish/republish/rewrap installer, localize to some local market
| or release some critical patch, when the original team was not
| responsive, not experienced in certain tech issues, had no
| resources allocated, was drown in bureaucracy, or even was not
| existing anymore, was not so uncommon.
|
| The case when this is breaching original contracts is the well
| the separate issue. Often times the publisher and developer have
| different views of the world, - relationships in this industry
| have always been tense.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Why would anyone need publishers I just don't understand. I
| paid money to Factorio developers. I've got zipped game. Best
| UX in the world. Compare that to the Steam or Origin pain when
| I need to spent hours trying to install all that stuff and
| having my computer full of spyware afterwards, yuck!
| legitster wrote:
| In this case, the publishers gave the money to develop the
| game.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Because they give developers money to make a game before they
| have any sales.
| Svip wrote:
| Not everyone can afford to manage a server, nor have the
| necessary skills to do so, and thus Steam becomes a
| convenient tool to distribute one's game through. Factorio
| too is sold on Steam, but is also available through their own
| site.
|
| I've heard that one of the appealing features of Steam for
| developers is how easy it is to upload new versions and
| generally distribute your game.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| The network effect of having established a marketplace with
| millions of consumers who pay for games is non-trivial.
| Steam is a trusted name in gaming for a reason.
| cestith wrote:
| Steam also promotes games, has reviews of them, and
| suggests games directly to players. The first time I
| personally heard of many of the games I play has been
| through Steam, Humble, GOG, Epic's game launcher/store
| app or other launchers and game selling sites.
|
| I also can reinstall hundreds of games from Steam without
| remembering who developed it, who paid for the
| development, or who published it to Steam. I just tell
| the Steam client to install it based on the name of the
| game. That's a great usability and convenience feature.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Traditionally, game publishers were mostly a bank. Their main
| job was not marketing and publishing (although that's
| important too), but financing a game's development until it
| was ready for release, and sometimes to help out with
| resources and services (like localization, quality assurance,
| etc).
|
| That's why Kickstarter and Steam Early Access are such a big
| deal, they allowed new financing models and independent game-
| dev studios to emanzipate themselves from publishers.
| driverdan wrote:
| In the same way that authors who write books "need"
| publishers. You can self publish but that can make it much
| harder for an unknown person to succeed.
|
| In some cases a publisher makes sense, in some it does not.
| dunefox wrote:
| > Compare that to the Steam or Origin pain when I need to
| spent hours trying to install all that stuff and having my
| computer full of spyware afterwards, yuck!
|
| Yeah, double clicking on a game and having it automatically
| downloaded and executed... hours of work and hundreds of
| viruses! You have obviously never used steam and origin.
| wackget wrote:
| More like:
|
| 1. Download Steam client
|
| 2. Click to install Steam client
|
| 3. Steam client starts to download even more crap itself
|
| 4. Steam client actually starts installing
|
| 5. Sign In/Register
|
| Then when you want to install or even play a game...
|
| 1. Launch Steam
|
| 2. [UPDATING STEAM, PLEASE WAIT]... Jesus Christ...
|
| 3. Sign In/Register
|
| 4. Click to install game
|
| 5. Launch game
|
| 6. [CHECKING FOR UPDATES, PLEASE WAIT]...
|
| 7. Finally play game
|
| And if your internet connection goes offline? Enjoy, you're
| fucked.
|
| Yeah, fuck Steam and all similar bloatware.
| jhauris wrote:
| As someone who sometimes has spotty internet service,
| steam games work just fine when steam is in offline mode.
| I share the frustration of needing to update a game
| before playing it, but that actually can be prevented on
| a per-game basis, and obviously doesn't happen if running
| in offline mode.
| dunefox wrote:
| So... your problem is what exactly? Downloading files
| takes time? Steam has to be installed? Automatic updates?
| yareth wrote:
| Steam has offline mode which does not require internet
| connection. You still may not be able to play the game if
| the game itself requires an internet connection, but that
| has nothing to do with Steam.
| lmkg wrote:
| Weather Factory, developer of Cultist Simulator, has been
| open about the business side of their development. This
| includes a few blog posts about their decision to go with a
| publisher (Humble Bundle) instead of going alone.
|
| tl;dr Up-front advance was important for cash flow and risk
| management. At the end of the day they ended up with less
| profit but think it was the right decision anyways.
|
| http://weatherfactory.biz/state-of-the-factory-year-1/
|
| Note also that there is a difference between a publisher
| (Humble) and a distributor (Steam), which is covered in that
| post.
| killtimeatwork wrote:
| Direct sales involve handling credit cards (i.e. chargebacks,
| scams) as well as getting in bed with potentially every tax
| authority in the world. For example, for every game sold in
| European country, you need to collect VAT and transfer it to
| that country's tax authority (currently, there's something
| like 28 of them?). This also includes filling out forms...
| Steam takes care of all that for you.
|
| However! Publishers don't do that. Publishers' value
| proposition is funding the development and doing the
| marketing for you, so that you can concentrate on making the
| game. If the game tanks, they eat up the losses (i.e. it's an
| investment, not a loan). The retail is a separate issue and,
| while it's handled by the publishers, is still likely to be
| handled via Steam or other platforms.
| GeneralTspoon wrote:
| You could also just use any merchant of record service to
| handle all that book keeping for you.
|
| They'll charge a hefty fee compared to doing it yourself,
| but still far below the Steam cut.
|
| Although publishing on steam obviously has other
| advantages.
| Xavdidtheshadow wrote:
| > Direct sales involve handling credit cards (i.e.
| chargebacks, scams)
|
| This is actually something that the Factorio developers
| (mentioned in the comment you're replying to) have had a
| lot of issues with. See "The Grey Market"
| (https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-171) or this
| article: https://www.pcgamer.com/factorio-devs-take-g2a-up-
| on-its-cha...
| antihero wrote:
| > For example, for every game sold in European country, you
| need to collect VAT and transfer it to that country's tax
| authority
|
| What if you simply do not do this? Are they going to arrest
| you? (Presuming you are VAT registered outside of the EU or
| whatever)
| [deleted]
| fvv wrote:
| I'm in eu and don't have to pay vat for extra eu or even
| extra country but in eu sales.. it depends on bilateral
| agreement between countries i suppose..
| badsectoracula wrote:
| You do not pay additional VAT, you just pay the VAT of
| the country your customer is resident of instead of your
| own country. To do that you need to be registered in all
| EU countries and file VAT for each one of them.
|
| There is an alternative for online services, etc called
| VAT MOSS[0], mainly meant for smaller sellers which allow
| you to keep paying VAT in your own country without
| registering in all of them but you still need to apply
| different VAT rates depending on your customer's country.
| Also you need to keep records of these transactions.
|
| Steam (and other services... well actually even Steam
| uses an external service for this) handle that stuff for
| you and you only deal with Steam.
|
| [0]
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-
| digit...
| e98cuenc wrote:
| you definitely have to add the relevant VAT, depending on
| your customer country, declare it in MOSS where it will
| be sent to every individual country.
|
| You also have to check if your customer is any other of
| the countries / states that collect VAT (India,
| Indonesia, many US states and oh so many random
| countries) and make a proper declaration in each country.
| It's almost impossible to do it right if you don't go
| with a partner to handle it all.
| deelowe wrote:
| Wouldn't they just use a 3rd party payment processor these
| days (e.g. stripe or similar)? I can't imagine taxes,
| chargebacks and other things being such a huge issue now
| for a small independent who could likely leverage one of
| the many available payment platforms.
|
| Marketing seems to be the biggest draw for using a
| publisher these days. That and getting easy access to
| partner management with sony and microsoft. My
| understanding is that some publishers are even quite good
| at social media now, helping indies get exposure on twitch
| and youtube.
| eznzt wrote:
| They are producers. Developing a game may take years and you
| need to pay salaries.
| sabellito wrote:
| Hours trying to install? What do you mean?
|
| I do think that the steam's fee of 30% feels strange, but all
| the infrastructure they provide is pretty sweet. How do you
| update the zip file you downloaded? Do you trust every
| developer to keep their download servers running forever so
| you can always download it later?
| kranner wrote:
| Same here, Steam is not painful at all to install and
| manage. And I don't get how Steam is spyware, other than
| tracking when and for how long I run which Steam game, and
| what my hardware configuration is.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > other than tracking when and for how long I run which
| Steam game
|
| Well, this sounds like spyware (unless it is opt-in).
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| I plan to publish my game on Steam soon. The 30% seems
| steep until you realise they're handling distribution,
| payment processing, forums and marketing if the initial
| traction is good. There are many great quality of life
| features in Steamworks that enhance my game greatly, and I
| do not need any server infrastructure. That being said, I
| would not enjoy having to pay a publisher as well.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > fee of 30% feels strange
|
| This is comparable to what every developer on every console
| has paid for over three decades in publishing, and still
| leagues better than what they were making from boxed retail
| sales.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| In general the publisher pays for development. For big games
| from known studios, you get a several million dollar advance
| that pays for development of the game. The game's royalties
| payback the advance and hopefully you earn something.
|
| That is why EA owns so many game studios one big flop and
| suddenly you owe EA a couple of million.
| SeanBoocock wrote:
| No one owes the publisher anything for a commercial failure
| in standard publisher contract where they are funding
| development. The publisher is taking the financial risk;
| that's the point. The developer will make additional money
| beyond the advance based on terms of the publishing
| contract (common terms would be developer starts getting
| paid royalties when publisher has 1XX% recouped development
| + marketing spend).
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| TIL, I always thought advances had to be paid back on
| underperformance.
| setr wrote:
| In that case, would there be any purpose going to a
| publisher rather than a bank directly? You'd be paying
| infinite royalty on success in exchange for.. marketing &
| distribution?
| terafo wrote:
| You may need publisher for one of the following:
|
| Marketing
|
| Localization
|
| Covering development costs
|
| Physical distribution
|
| It is definitely possible to do marketing and localization
| alone as a company, but it will divert studio's focus from
| game development, which could do more harm than good since
| game development is insanely hard. Physical distribution is
| almost impossible to do properly for a small company. Of
| course there are game investors that invest into specific
| games and it could be better fit than publishers, but you can
| do both.
|
| _need to spent hours trying to install all that stuff_
|
| That is pretty much not a case.
| prvc wrote:
| Hard to read because the background section does not specify how
| the relationship between the companies got started, and what was
| in place before the falling-out occurred.
| lvturner wrote:
| https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-her...
| einpoklum wrote:
| Is there an official response by Nacon anywhere?
|
| Nacon is the company which funded the production of the game. So
| it's not as though some band of pirates attacked a game
| development studio. I'm betting they have contractual
| disagreements regarding how to distribution is supposed to occur,
| who was supposed to make money off of what etc. - for which
| reason it seems prudent to listen to both sides.
| jiofih wrote:
| It seems that Frogware thought they had a licensing agreement,
| while Nacon thought they were buying the game IP. I guess the
| only way to know is if they publish the contract itself online.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Article aside, a pet peeve of mine... I feel like it's often
| gaming sites like this one that have the most obtuse cookie
| banners.
|
| > This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll
| assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.
|
| First off, assuming consent and saying it's "to improve your
| experience." Maybe they're not doing any targeting... nope, wait,
| they're loading tracking pixels. And their privacy policy says
| they use cookies to "...help customize our marketing offerings."
|
| Okay, now how about opting out? Click "Read More" which takes you
| to... their privacy policy. Some sites at least bury information
| about how to disable browser cookies entirely in their privacy
| policy. Here even that is nowhere to be found; no mention of how
| you could prevent their cookies from being set in your browser at
| all. (Setting aside the fact that disabling cookies globally in
| your browser is so obviously _not_ a sane way to avoid tracking
| on a single site, so even that would be woefully insufficient.)
|
| I can only assume folks in the EU are seeing something that
| _actually_ asks for consent, because this would be so far from
| compliance over there it 's not even funny. Hoping the US gets
| real online privacy laws soon.
|
| > You can opt-out if you wish.
|
| No, practically speaking, you cannot.
| trissylegs wrote:
| Opened an articel on Yahoo news today. That one was a doozy.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Even here in the EU there's many mainstream sites that just
| have a cookiewall saying "by proceeding you agree to our use of
| cookies".
|
| This is totally not ok. There's should always be a way to opt
| out, it's not allowed to just block the site in case people
| don't want to agree. This has been reaffirmed in court several
| times. But nothing seems to be done to enforce this.
| gridspy wrote:
| You need to install DDG privacy essentials, uMatrix and uBlock
| Origin. Then you won't even see those banners, since they no
| longer load (along with any of the related tracking)
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I would rather see the banners. They're a good indication of
| how much a company is likely to respect my privacy: no banner
| is best (because it means they're not tracking), a banner
| with an easy opt-in and a way to dismiss it is okay, and a
| banner that doesn't allow an opt-out I'll just leave active
| forever. It'll annoy me anytime I visit the site, and that's
| the point; I'll avoid sites that do this when I can.
|
| One example: PayPal has a huge banner (often blocking the
| "pay now" button) asking for permission to use my data for
| targeted ads, and there's no way to dismiss it other than
| agreeing to it. So I leave it there forever, and every time I
| use PayPal I have a little bit more of a negative impression
| of it.
|
| It's also good to know about them when I'm sharing links with
| friends - I'll be very hesitant to share one with someone who
| I know is using a mobile browser, because they definitely
| won't have the tools to avoid tracking like this.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| > I can only assume folks in the EU are seeing something that
| actually asks for consent
|
| Nope, same message.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Yeah, this is super noncompliant. See https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
|
| The ability to opt out does not suffice to satisfy the GDPR,
| even if I _could_ find how to do it.
| rendall wrote:
| Over time I got a feel for sites that do this, and as a
| practical matter I open those in private/incognito, then just
| click through. Commercial blogs, how-to sites, news,
| especiallyfrom the US: almost never compliant.
|
| I do judge. It makes me a bit less receptive to Frogwares'
| message, that they do this on their company blog
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Want me to read and sympathize with your sad story? Get rid of
| the newsletter nag that smacks me in the face the moment I open
| your page.
| einpoklum wrote:
| TBH this didn't happen to me. Could it be country-specific?
| pc86 wrote:
| There is an element of randomness. Presumably it's to A/B
| test what is most effective to getting folks to sign up.
| davnn wrote:
| Could be adblocked as well.
| ohashi wrote:
| running ublock origin and i got it
| paconbork wrote:
| the "Fanboy's Annoyance" filter (not on by default) seems
| to get rid of it
| rasz wrote:
| >The French Justice refused Nacon's demands twice, first in July
| 2020 and then in October 2020 during an appeal.
|
| while https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314325 "Order
| Frogwares Ireland to deliver the two masters of the game 'The
| Sinking city' on PC DRM Free and Steam format under penalty of
| 50,000 euros per day of delay from the 5th day following
| notification by e-mail of the decision to intervene,"
|
| someone is lying to me here
| niea_11 wrote:
| I made a comment about this here with the relevent part of the
| decision in french:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314681
|
| Edit:
|
| The relevant part in french:
|
| Sur la livraison des formats manquants :
|
| -- ordonner a Frogwares Ireland de lui livrer les deux masters
| du jeu 'The Sinking city' sur _format PC DRM Free et Steam_
| sous astreinte de 50.000 euros par jour de retard a compter du
| 5 eme jour suivant la notification par e-mail de la decision a
| intervenir
| jiofih wrote:
| the linked comment has been deleted.
| megiddo wrote:
| I think you're right. One of the first comments is the video he
| says is "Nacon is licensed to release it on Steam."
|
| OK. Then why is your licensee going to such great lengths to
| publish to a platform you contractually agreed to support?
|
| Something smells here.
| wittyreference wrote:
| Because the publisher didn't pay them agreed-upon sums, and
| they're withholding the game awaiting said payment.
|
| I don't know which parts are true or false, but that's right
| in the post, and makes complete sense.
| [deleted]
| brmgb wrote:
| Both are.
|
| The 50,000 euros per day of delay is what Nacon was asking for
| when they lost in July 2020. Then, Frogwares lost the October
| 2020 appeal. The French appeal court decided that the contract
| dismissal was actually unlawful. Therefore the contract stands
| and Nacon has the right to distribute the game. However,
| mandating the delivery of the two masters falls out of the
| court jurisdiction. This will be judged separatly during the
| year and the penalities don't apply until then.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| It seems there is some kind of Force Majeure clause in French
| law or the contract between Nacon and Frogware that prevents
| termination of the contract during Covid-19:
|
| _In our email exchange, BBI /Nacon essentially wrote that
| the contract cannot be terminated because of the emergency
| laws in France, aimed to protect businesses during the
| COVID-19 pandemic, and at the same time BBI/Nacon refused to
| fulfill their obligations toward us (payment, documented
| reports, etc...). _
|
| That should cover the original decision of the court. The
| following seems to hint on the reasoning for the appeal:
|
| _- The "Emergency Laws explanation" actually triggers the
| Force Majeure article of our own contract, entitling us to
| terminate the agreement in case the parties could not
| minimize the effects of an Event of Force Majeure on this
| agreement for a period of 60 days._
|
| Source:
|
| https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-
| her...
| josefx wrote:
| I am not an expert with laws, but weren't the COVID
| relevant emergency laws created explicitly to prevent
| contract termination due to non payment? Claiming that your
| contract overrules laws specifically written to prevent
| these clauses from taking effect seems a bit optimistic.
| brmgb wrote:
| No, that was random non sense from Frogwares. The court
| explicitly disagreed on this point in October (two months
| after the article you are posting). They seem to have a
| terrible lawyer.
|
| The appeal court threw away the Force Majeur argument
| because both actors demonstrably kept b'their activity
| going as usual and it would have been an argument in favor
| of Nacon anyway. Force Majeur would have justified them not
| fulfilling their part as a distributor but they
| demonstrably did.
|
| The court stated that the termination of the contract
| wasn't legal because Frogwares had no basis to terminate
| it. Frogwares alleges that Nacon didn't pay them all they
| were due. Nacon disagrees and states that they correctly
| paid royalties minus the costs of distribution per the
| contract. Frogwares did ask to see proofs of these costs
| and gave Bacon a month to produce them. They then used
| Nacon's failure to do so as reason to terminate. However,
| as stated by the court, that was never what was planned in
| the contract. While Frogwares has a right to audit Nacon
| (which they didn't properly use), Nacon is under no
| obligation to send them arbitrary documents.
|
| Note that it remains entirely possible that Nacon is
| actually underpaying Frogwares. It's just they went at it
| in an utterly stupid way.
| marcodiego wrote:
| How about releasing the game under an open source license and
| then complaining that they are not respecting the license and
| breaking copyrights of the artists?
| Sebguer wrote:
| This same publisher released a game based on the Paranoia
| tabletop setting, and then removed it from all platforms ~two
| months later without a single reason or announcement. To this
| day, no one knows why they removed it. The game wasn't great, but
| it certainly wasn't "delete from the internet without a word"
| bad. https://www.pcgamer.com/whatever-happened-to-paranoia/
| legitster wrote:
| I hadn't heard of this before, so maybe I am missing some context
| here, but something seems fishy:
|
| > Steam is one of the listed platforms of commercialization in
| the contract between Frogwares and Nacon. But since the release
| of the game, Nacon's unlawful actions have forced Frogwares to
| defend its property and react in front of the French Justice for
| lack of payments, attempts to steal our IPs, etc which we made a
| public letter about back in August 2020.
|
| Here's the previous statement from Nacon:
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/750130/view/30584784...
|
| I can't find any of the details about Nacon's unlawful actions,
| and it seems Frogware is being intentionally vague. Doing some
| digging, it seems like this is almost a complete retread of a
| legal battle they had before:
|
| https://twinfinite.net/2019/09/frogwares-games-delisted-alle...
|
| It seems like they may have a history of playing a copyright game
| with publishers - take their money to develop a game, then use
| legal trickery to take back the property outright.
|
| In this case Nacon may have felt they had a "mechanic's lien" on
| the code and felt justified stealing it back outright (probably a
| bad choice in the long run). But regardless, I don't get the
| sense that Frogwares is completely being on the up and up about
| the relationship with their exes.
|
| _Update_ : Frogwares has a much more detailed list of grievances
| here: https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-
| her... Some seem petty and some seem serious. But it still leaves
| questions. How much did Nacon already pay Frogwares? Does
| Frogwares plan on paying it back?
|
| > The agreement is, therefore, terminated without further
| formality. Moreover, on July 17, 2020, Nacon attempted to oppose
| the termination in court, but the judge rejected the demand, and
| the contract is now terminated in the eyes of the law.
|
| Maybe French law is much weirder than ours, but this phrasing
| would be highly suspect in the US. You would get a really
| affirmative ruling that you are still bound by contract or not.
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| That doesn't seem like a retread at all. Sherlock Holmes vs
| Jack the Ripper, for instance, was released in '09, and the
| dispute happened in 2019. A ten year period of exclusivity
| would not be uncommon, and neither would a publisher dragging
| their heels on handling it at the end.
|
| It's very possible that the producers, lawyers and business
| development people involved in the original deal had all moved
| on. NOLF is famously not getting a remaster because nobody can
| figure out who owns it!
|
| Maybe Frogwares is a bad actor, I don't know. But game
| publishers are notorious for trying to get away with all sorts
| of shit with studios that cannot afford to fight back, so
| there's another possibility: Frogwares is prepared to litigate
| to defend what is legitimately theirs.
| toyg wrote:
| _> NOLF is famously not getting a remaster because nobody can
| figure out who owns it!_
|
| Yet another way the games industry is just "movie industry
| 2.0". The web of production and distribution deals in the
| movie biz is notoriously hairy, prone to end up in situations
| where IP ownership is contested. Which is a shame, really.
| legitster wrote:
| Absolutely fair. I just want to make sure we don't rush to
| white knight someone in what from a distance could very well
| be a domestic squabble.
|
| I don't doubt for a second that the publishers are crappy
| actors. But on the same token, you wouldn't expect them to do
| something so brazenly awful unless they had a legal leg to
| stand on.
| mym1990 wrote:
| More like a peg to stand on. Yarrr.
| fnordsensei wrote:
| > I can't find any of the details about Nacon's unlawful
| actions, and it seems Frogware is being intentionally vague.
|
| They are not.
|
| They've written about it before: https://frogwares.com/the-
| sinking-city-is-being-delisted-her...
|
| In short,
|
| - They have withheld payments owed Frogwares.
|
| - They have been behind on payments made by on average 40 days.
|
| - They have incorrectly claimed to own the IP to third parties,
| including in their IPO.
| legitster wrote:
| Yes! I updated my post when I saw this.
|
| I can't imagine it will be so simple for Frogwares to rip up
| their contract and walk away with the money they were paid
| already. But I imagine their publisher openly ripping off
| their game will make upcoming settlements really easy for
| them.
| batmansmk wrote:
| The court ordered Frogwares to deliver the sources in
| October with 50k euros of penalty per day not shipping
| them. Frogwares did not deliver anything. As an Irish
| company with offices in Ukraine having to settle against a
| french publisher paying taxes in France, low standing in
| court (several lawsuits) and not having executed previous
| court orders, it sounds harder from my point of view. I can
| imagine a world where they even end up having to pay for
| the hacking cost as well.
| grumple wrote:
| Seems kinda weird. I wonder if Frogwares could sue in a
| US court? Both companies probably do the bulk of their
| business in the US and are selling through US-based
| stores.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Why? It's not any better than where they are now. If
| anything US court will drag it our even longer. Also
| Frogware already lost.
| avereveard wrote:
| was the original contract ever produced or available?
|
| > to deliver the sources
|
| this seems weird, since one party is telling the world
| from their blog the source transfer was never part of the
| agreement
| niea_11 wrote:
| I don't think the court ordered them to deliver the
| source code.
|
| I didn't read the full decision linked by @ernesth, but
| this part says that they have to deliver two "masters",
| one drm free and one for Steam.
|
| _Sur la livraison des formats manquants :
|
| -- ordonner a Frogwares Ireland de lui livrer les deux
| masters du jeu 'The Sinking city' sur format PC DRM Free
| et Steam sous astreinte de 50.000 euros par jour de
| retard a compter du 5 eme jour suivant la notification
| par e-mail de la decision a intervenir_
|
| I think the meaning of master in this case is Gold Master
| : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cyc
| le#RT...
| batmansmk wrote:
| You are right, it's the gold DRM free master, not the
| sources. But Frogwares still didn't deliver those two
| builds.
| fnordsensei wrote:
| In my opinion (IANAL), making claims in their IPO that
| aren't true might end up being the most damaging for them,
| if found to be true, and if someone cares to work that
| angle.
| ernesth wrote:
| > Maybe French law is much weirder than ours, but this phrasing
| would be highly suspect in the US. You would get a really
| affirmative ruling that you are still bound by contract or not.
|
| French law is not that strange :). But the decision was
| appealed and it seems Nacon won in appeal (in october 2020),
| which allowed them to pursue the contract and to publish the
| game another time.
|
| The decision:
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DwqXp6...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| legitster wrote:
| This seems like exactly what is missing from their story.
| Unless something more recent was issued, they were flagrantly
| ignoring a direct court order.
| strogonoff wrote:
| Summary of the timeline, based on a previous post by
| Frogwares[0]:
|
| In 2019:
|
| -- Publisher paid for game development, though usually not
| on time. Per contract, IP remained with the game dev, and
| there was no obligation to hand over the source.
|
| -- Publisher hired another studio to work on a similar
| game, and started demanding source code from game dev.
|
| -- Game dev delivered the game (not the source). (Not clear
| whether on time or not.)
|
| -- Publisher released the game, and immediately withheld
| profits from sales (with some mechanism referred to as
| retroactive milestone cancellation).
|
| -- Publisher was also found to remove game dev's logo,
| buying domain names reflecting game dev's brand, mislead
| the public as to who had the rights to the game, and do
| other shady things.
|
| -- Game dev sued, with unknown outcome.
|
| In 2020:
|
| -- Attempt to pirate the game by the publisher was
| discovered (February). (Note: this is alleged to have
| happened _long before publisher won on appeal,_ so it's not
| as if the publisher decided to pirate the game after the
| court determined they are owed the source.)
|
| -- Game dev terminated the now-breached contract and
| notified the publisher. Publisher claimed _French COVID
| regulations precluding contract termination_ (?!).
|
| -- Publisher sued and lost (July).
|
| -- Publisher appealed and won (October). (This happened
| after the publication of the post I referenced.)
|
| This obviously presents game dev's perspective only. It
| seems exhaustive enough though, and so far I'm inclined to
| think they aren't distorting facts and may have been taken
| advantage of by a larger business (the publisher).
|
| Violating a court order is bad, and if game dev was ordered
| to hand over the source they should probably have complied.
| That aside, it's unclear whether the courts ultimately
| sided with the good guy here. Sadly, if game dev's the
| victim here, appealing cross-border may be infeasible for
| them.
|
| [0] https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-
| delisted-her...
| bluesign wrote:
| If you read the court ruling (in some comment around
| here, but in french) it makes things a little bit more
| clear.
|
| - publisher not asking for the source code, they want GM
| copies
|
| - publisher didn't demand source code according to
| contract ( they state publisher asked for code, but there
| is no indication they demanded )
|
| - they didn't deliver the game, at least drm free and for
| steam
|
| - publisher usually has non exclusive usage right to IP
|
| But most important, they contacted steam etc and delisted
| game still appeal process was going, citing IP reasons.
|
| Also they are even defensing that delaying steam release
| didnt cause any harm to the publisher.
|
| They are acting in bad faith clearly.
| strogonoff wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer, but isn't it reasonable to pull the
| plug as soon as the publisher had lost the contract
| termination lawsuit? Otherwise it seems like a loophole
| if the publisher can keep appealing indefinitely while
| getting (and withholding from game dev) all profits from
| the sales.
|
| > they didn't deliver the game
|
| I don't think either of us knows what exactly the
| delivery entailed (if you do, you could share a source),
| but as far as I understand the game _was_ delivered as it
| was sold by the publisher (who kept and /or didn't
| completely disclose profits--against the terms, it
| appears) and played by the users.
|
| > they state publisher asked for code, but there is no
| indication they demanded
|
| According to their post, publisher hired another studio
| to work on a similar game, and apparently wanted to have
| the code for that purpose. "Ask for" is different from
| "demand", I agree, though it does sound like they were
| pressured.
|
| That aside, are you basically saying the game dev is
| lying and their contract with the publisher was different
| from what they claim in their posts? I guess we can't say
| for sure, absent evidence, but I don't see why they'd lie
| here.
| legitster wrote:
| > I'm not a lawyer, but isn't it reasonable to pull the
| plug as soon as the publisher had lost the contract
| termination lawsuit? Otherwise it seems like a loophole
| if the publisher can keep appealing indefinitely while
| getting (and withholding from game dev) all profits from
| the sales.
|
| On the contrary, it sounds like the publisher had already
| given the develop several millions of dollars to develop
| the game. You can't just declare a contract void, keep
| the money, and tank the deal.
|
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Dwq
| Xp6...
|
| Frogwares was under a court order to fulfill their
| obligation.
|
| IANAL, but it's worth pointing out that none of the court
| orders precluded a lawsuit for Frogwares to collect their
| fair share. But them violating their obligations in the
| mean time is probably bad faith and will land them in hot
| water.
| vitus wrote:
| The formerly-alleged logo removal was from console game
| covers and from marketing materials. Which, while
| sketchy, isn't necessarily a violation of copyright,
| unless the game devs designed the covers.
|
| > Attempt to pirate the game by the publisher was
| discovered (February). (Note: this is alleged to have
| happened long before publisher won on appeal, so it's not
| as if the publisher decided to pirate the game after the
| court determined they are owed the source.)
|
| Actually, there are two alleged instances of piracy.
|
| First, in Feb 2020, their game was slated to be listed on
| a distribution platform that was not agreed upon.
|
| (In August 2020, they removed their game from Steam.)
|
| Second, in Feb 2021 (just last week!), the deluxe version
| of their game was listed on Steam with identifying
| watermarks, copyright, digital signing, and more removed
| _from the software_.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Isn't what Nacon did illegal under the anti-circumvention
| provision of the DMCA?
| bilekas wrote:
| I remember reading about this from a long while ago.
|
| Some publishers treat their partner studios like garbage, and it
| seems more and more studios treat their developers like garbage.
| Daho0n wrote:
| Clearly it goes both ways.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| More background from the point of view of Frogware:
|
| _The Sinking City is Being Delisted. Here's Why_
|
| https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-her...
|
| Without wishing to take sides, here's what seems to be at the
| root of the dispute, from Frogware's POV:
|
| _On June 27, 2019, The Sinking City was released on Xbox One,
| PS4, and Epic Games Store. That was a great day for us. And once
| the game was released, we received a letter from Bigben /Nacon
| that the milestones that were previously approved are being
| canceled, meaning that we would not receive any profit from the
| sales of the game. A retroactive cancellation on not delivering a
| product on time that is already out in the market is not
| acceptable. That was when our legal battle began._
|
| _We filed a lawsuit against Bigben /Nacon on August 2019 and,
| incidentally, only then we started to receive income reports,
| though incomplete and undocumented. So it was not possible for us
| to see if the revenue was correctly calculated or even how many
| units we sold. At some point we received a statement claiming
| that one of the console manufacturers hasn't paid royalties for
| more than 5 months, while actually the same console manufacturer
| paid our royalties from other games without any delay in the same
| period of time._
| legitster wrote:
| From below in the comments:
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DwqXp6...
|
| They seem to be under a court order to at least fulfill their
| contract obligations until the dispute is resolved.
| ajarmst wrote:
| I'm less intrigued by the fact that this happened than by the
| fact that it was such a childishly incompetent effort at IP
| theft.
|
| I'm not sure how French courts would differ, but in my
| jurisdiction, if a company that was failing to get what it wanted
| from the court just went and stole it, mid-litigation, there
| would be a very unpleasant discussion with the judge about what
| was going to happen next.
| bibinou wrote:
| Full text of the decision given on October 29, 2020 by the Court
| of Appeals, in French: https://archive.is/Ezj08
| bogwog wrote:
| The only thing I got out of this fiasco is that I should trust
| neither Nacon nor Frogwares.
| Paul_S wrote:
| Publishers abuse studios, studios abuse games developers. You'd
| expect developers to leave and set out on their own or at least
| change industries.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I call this the "not as smart as we think we are" problem.
|
| Given on premise, "everyone" thinks their boss is a dope and
| they could do a better job.
|
| If this were true, then companies built by disgruntled
| employees leaving their bosses to do said "better job" should
| be able to outcompete their former employers. Market pressure
| should push other competitors to adopt similar "better job"
| practices, and the "dope manager" problem should evaporate
| away.
|
| But it hasn't. We'll even hear stories about companies that
| were started with this intention (e.g. Valve), only to later
| hear other stories about how the bosses are dopes.
|
| I consider one of two possibilities: either there is no such
| thing as market competition, or the original "everyone" is not
| as smart as they think they are, and can't actually do a better
| job.
|
| It could be that success turns you into a dope, but that
| doesn't change anything. The lack of ability to perpetually do
| a "better job" pushes us into the "no real market competition"
| scenario.
|
| I'm actually on the fence as to which possibility I believe is
| the case. I suspect both are largely true, but which one is
| dominant is not clear.
|
| As another example of "no real market competition" problem,
| consider that even small towns have multiple pizzarias, all of
| which are essentially identical, and equally shitty. They order
| their ingredients from the same vendors. They either order
| their equipment from the same vendors, or get it used from the
| previous pizzeria that went under because it's in a terrible
| location/ran by a dope, who themselves ordered everything from
| the same vendors. This "shitty pizzeria" model of markets
| states that store-front location and customer price biases are
| much stronger elements of success than product quality, as no
| pizzeria could afford the marginal cost of improving their
| product to attempt to capture a greater proportion of
| customers.
|
| I think a lot of software gets made under the "shitty pizzeria"
| model. Most software consulting seems to be more about where
| the consultant is located than what the consultant can do. And
| in particular, I think a lot of the indie games market fits
| this market, made famous by memes showing rows upon rows of
| nearly identical icons in game app store listings.
| cortesoft wrote:
| This is very strange. This sounds like something that should be
| settled in the courts; I can't imagine a lawyer would recommend
| making public claims like this while lawsuits are pending.
|
| This all seems very amateurish.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Lawyers and clients usually make public statements to support
| their case, for PR.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Case is already over. Nacon won. For better or worse, the
| developer is trying to win people over to their side on a
| case that was already decided.
|
| I understand the huge frustrations they must be feeling, and
| they have legitimate complaints. But trying to rally public
| opinion against a publisher over a suit they lost is not
| going to make it easy for them to find publishers in the
| future.
| strogonoff wrote:
| It is most certainly appropriate for a victim to rally
| public opinion and raise awareness if someone acts
| maliciously taking advantage of the [therefore, broken]
| legal system supporting them. If the situation is anywhere
| near to what Frogwares claims it to be, it's most
| definitely worth public attention and outrage.
|
| That said, to me it seems so far that it's one of those
| "another country, not my problem" cases. Publisher's in
| France, developer's in UK (or Ukraine?)--even if game
| developer has the money, best of luck suing cross-border,
| especially in current times.
| mijoharas wrote:
| why are you saying the case is over?
|
| Case found in favour of frogware.
|
| Nacon appealed and won the appeal.
|
| frogware is appealing which we're waiting to hear the
| outcome of.
| ernesth wrote:
| A judgment has already been given, which Frogwares lost.
|
| The judgment, in october 2020, said that frogwares had
| illicitly tried to end their contract with Nacon. They were
| condemned to pursue the contract. Hence Nacon has published the
| game as it was the object of the contract.
| cestith wrote:
| Frogwares was ordered to continue the contract _while it
| continued to be litigated_ was the ruling I read. If
| Frogwares is in breach of a court order, the solution is to
| file a complaint with that same court that the order isn 't
| being fulfilled. It almost certainly was not the court's
| intent that Nacon bought a copy at retail, made changes to
| the game, and published it under their own name with no
| attribution to Frogwares.
| jiofih wrote:
| Their issue doesn't seem to be with Nacon publishing the game
| though, but trying to appropriate their IP and even releasing
| other products without permission. That sounds like a clear
| breach of contract.
| cortesoft wrote:
| How would we know, we haven't seen the actual contract.
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