Among the many other games that came out on Steam last Friday was a title called The Sinking City. Under normal circumstances, it would not have stood out. It is a game of 2019 that received criticism in most of the average. However, its developer, a studio called Frogwares, says The Sinking City was uploaded to the Valve store by its previous publisher without his consent.
On Monday, the studio shared an extensive video detailing its allegations against Nacon. In short, Frogwares claims that the company bought a copy of the game from a competing store and then hacked it and uploaded it to Steam. The developer said that this is Nacon’s third attempt to publish a pirated version of The Sinking City and the latter came after the company issued a 48-hour ultimatum. According to the studio, the game’s Steam release features several telltale signs that it has been altered, including missing logos and user interface elements. Frogwares was able to examine the configuration files using its own encryption key, which seems that Nacon did not change when it reloaded the game.
“To make it clear, this is piracy, and when hacking is meant to steal a product and make money from it, it is called piracy or counterfeiting,” said the studio. “To achieve this goal, programmers with serious skills need to be involved. This is not a DIY job for inexperienced people, it’s done by programmers who know [the] Unreal engine too. “
The two companies have been involved in more than THE Sinking City since 2019. This made the game unavailable on some platforms. The studio believes that Nacon will try to publish the hacked version of The Sinking City for other showcases. Nacon addressed the allegations in a game update. “We are sorry that Frogwares persists in interrupting the launch of Sinking City. It was Frogwares that came to Nacon to request financing for the development of the game and, to date, more than 10 million euros have been paid to Frogwares by Nacon ”, he said.
At the time of this writing, The Sinking City is still available for purchase through Steam. Frogwares said that Nacon will face “legal consequences” for its actions.