14 ms·

Publisher Nacon Cracked and Pirated Our Game: The Sinking City

416 points by jccalhoun 6y ago

prvc 6y ago
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 6y ago
  https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-heres-why/ https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-her...
ryukafalz 6y ago
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.
- banana_giraffe 6y ago
  > I can only assume folks in the EU are seeing something that actually asks for consent Nope, same message.
- trissylegs 6y ago
  Opened an articel on Yahoo news today. That one was a doozy.
- FeepingCreature 6y ago
  Yeah, this is super noncompliant. See https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ 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 6y ago
  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
- gridspy 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
    - gridspy 6y ago
      Once you visit a site, you then open the uMatrix tab provided to decide which 3rd party scripts you will allow to run. Typically you only enable a few. I'd much rather know about tracking this way (the list of 20 blocked scripts) than they other (they already ran, but at least the site popped up a banner)
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  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.
legitster 6y ago
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/3058478454630446188 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-alleged-dispute-focus-home-interactive/ 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-heres-why/ 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 6y ago
  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.
cortesoft 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Lawyers and clients usually make public statements to support their case, for PR.
  - Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
  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.
juskrey 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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!
  - Causality1 6y ago
    Because they give developers money to make a game before they have any sales.
  - Svip 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
Sebguer 6y ago
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/ https://www.pcgamer.com/whatever-happened-to-paranoia/
einpoklum 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
loloquwowndueo 6y ago
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 6y ago
  TBH this didn't happen to me. Could it be country-specific?
  - pc86 6y ago
    There is an element of randomness. Presumably it's to A/B test what is most effective to getting folks to sign up.
  - davnn 6y ago
    Could be adblocked as well.
    - ohashi 6y ago
      running ublock origin and i got it
      - paconbork 6y ago
        the "Fanboy’s Annoyance" filter (not on by default) seems to get rid of it
niea_11 6y ago
Press release from Nacon about the dispute (5 Jan 2021) : https://corporate.nacongaming.com/en/press/the-sinking-city-stores/ 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).
- random5634 6y ago
  PDF here https://corporate.nacongaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/NACON_PR_The-Sinking-City_EN.pdf https://corporate.nacongaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01... This is not someone in China cracking and rebranding things
  - niea_11 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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.
- cestith 6y ago
  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.
rasz 6y ago
>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 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
- jiofih 6y ago
  the linked comment has been deleted.
- niea_11 6y ago
  I made a comment about this here with the relevent part of the decision in french: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314681 Edit: The relevant part in french: Sur la livraison des formats manquants : — ordonner à 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 à compter du 5 ème jour suivant la notification par e-mail de la décision à intervenir
- megiddo 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
- brmgb 6y ago
  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.
bogwog 6y ago
The only thing I got out of this fiasco is that I should trust neither Nacon nor Frogwares.
bilekas 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Clearly it goes both ways.
marcodiego 6y ago
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?
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
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-heres-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 6y ago
  From below in the comments: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DwqXp6UGNU8J:https://www.doctrine.fr/d/CA/Paris/2020/CB9E50FD5D01D28E6DFA2+ 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.
bibinou 6y ago
Full text of the decision given on October 29, 2020 by the Court of Appeals, in French: https://archive.is/Ezj08 https://archive.is/Ezj08
Paul_S 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
ajarmst 6y ago
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.
MikeUt 6y ago
Isn't what Nacon did illegal under the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA?

416 points by jccalhoun 6y ago

prvc 6y ago

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 6y ago
https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-heres-why/ https://frogwares.com/the-sinking-city-is-being-delisted-her...

ryukafalz 6y ago

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.

banana_giraffe 6y ago
> I can only assume folks in the EU are seeing something that actually asks for consent Nope, same message.
trissylegs 6y ago
Opened an articel on Yahoo news today. That one was a doozy.
FeepingCreature 6y ago
Yeah, this is super noncompliant. See https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ 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 6y ago
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
gridspy 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
  - gridspy 6y ago
    Once you visit a site, you then open the uMatrix tab provided to decide which 3rd party scripts you will allow to run. Typically you only enable a few. I'd much rather know about tracking this way (the list of 20 blocked scripts) than they other (they already ran, but at least the site popped up a banner)
GekkePrutser 6y ago
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.

legitster 6y ago

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/3058478454630446188 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-alleged-dispute-focus-home-interactive/ 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-heres-why/ 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 6y ago
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.

cortesoft 6y ago

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 6y ago
Lawyers and clients usually make public statements to support their case, for PR.
- Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
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.

juskrey 6y ago

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 6y ago
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!
- Causality1 6y ago
  Because they give developers money to make a game before they have any sales.
- Svip 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.

Sebguer 6y ago

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/ https://www.pcgamer.com/whatever-happened-to-paranoia/

einpoklum 6y ago

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 6y ago
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.

loloquwowndueo 6y ago

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 6y ago
TBH this didn't happen to me. Could it be country-specific?
- pc86 6y ago
  There is an element of randomness. Presumably it's to A/B test what is most effective to getting folks to sign up.
- davnn 6y ago
  Could be adblocked as well.
  - ohashi 6y ago
    running ublock origin and i got it
    - paconbork 6y ago
      the "Fanboy’s Annoyance" filter (not on by default) seems to get rid of it

niea_11 6y ago

Press release from Nacon about the dispute (5 Jan 2021) : https://corporate.nacongaming.com/en/press/the-sinking-city-stores/ 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).

random5634 6y ago
PDF here https://corporate.nacongaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/NACON_PR_The-Sinking-City_EN.pdf https://corporate.nacongaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01... This is not someone in China cracking and rebranding things
- niea_11 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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.
cestith 6y ago
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.

rasz 6y ago

>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 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

jiofih 6y ago
the linked comment has been deleted.
niea_11 6y ago
I made a comment about this here with the relevent part of the decision in french: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26314681 Edit: The relevant part in french: Sur la livraison des formats manquants : — ordonner à 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 à compter du 5 ème jour suivant la notification par e-mail de la décision à intervenir
megiddo 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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.
brmgb 6y ago
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.

bogwog 6y ago

The only thing I got out of this fiasco is that I should trust neither Nacon nor Frogwares.

bilekas 6y ago

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 6y ago
Clearly it goes both ways.

marcodiego 6y ago

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?

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

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-heres-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 6y ago
From below in the comments: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DwqXp6UGNU8J:https://www.doctrine.fr/d/CA/Paris/2020/CB9E50FD5D01D28E6DFA2+ 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.

bibinou 6y ago

Full text of the decision given on October 29, 2020 by the Court of Appeals, in French: https://archive.is/Ezj08 https://archive.is/Ezj08

Paul_S 6y ago

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 6y ago
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.

ajarmst 6y ago

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.

MikeUt 6y ago

Isn't what Nacon did illegal under the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA?