Lovecraftian RPG The Sinking City is available for purchase again, after an ongoing legal dispute between developers Frogwares and publisher Nacon saw it removed from digital stores in August. According to a note from Nacon, the dispute is still pending in the French court. But, at least for now, The Sinking City is back on sale on Xbox One, and will be available on Steam and PS4 again soon.
In August, Frogwares stated in an open letter that Nacon (formerly Bigben Interactive) attempted to claim copyright for the game after its release, allegedly withheld payments during development, and owed Frogwares about € 1 million in unpaid royalties. (about £ 900,000).
The developers said they terminated their contract with Nacon in July 2020. The Sinking City then began to disappear from digital stores due to, what Frogwares believes, confusion over the game’s ownership. The developers then removed it from other stores to try to prevent more sales from going to Nacon.
At the time, Nacon rejected Frogwares’ claims. In a new statement released by the publisher yesterday, they say the dispute is still pending in French courts and, in October, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that Frogwares illegally terminated its contract with Nacon. Now, developers need to fulfill the contract until the legal issues are resolved.
“Confirmed in its expectations for this decision and regardless of the time necessary to resolve this dispute definitively, Nacon is continuing its action in defense of its rights and continued the execution of this judicial decision by asking platforms and locations to put The Sinking City game online again so that no one is held hostage to this situation, ”said Nacon. “However, it is specified that, as some of the game’s online bets depend on Frogwares’ goodwill to perform, its absence cannot be attributed to Nacon.”
At the time of writing, The Sinking City was available for purchase on Xbox One. It also has a Steam page, with all bits and DLC parts listed, although it is not yet for sale there. It will arrive on PS4 “at a later date” as well.
In her critique of The Sinking City, Alice Bee considered it to be a good detective game, underpinned by her Lovecraftian themes: “Without the weird parts of Lovecraft, this is a slightly nasty and a little dirty detective game that does some things interesting in a very atmospheric environment representation of a deeply depressed city. “