The contractual dispute between The Sinking City developer Frogwares and publisher Nacon has a new twist after the game reappeared on Steam last week raising protests from the developer, who claimed that the one re-released by Nacon was a pirated build of the game released on the market without authorization (initial story here).
In the past hours Frogwares has returned to be heard with a long post in which she expresses her point of view.
The Ukrainian team claims that the version of The Sinking City that Nacon put on Steam is actually a build that he had "specifically prepared" for release on the key Gamesplanet site, cracked and slightly modified to remove logos and other related content. The study claims that Nacon acquired the game using a key to bypass the Unreal Engine's encryption system, which Frogwares noted not to be "A do-it-yourself job by inexperienced people" noting how this kind of work was done "by programmers who know Unreal well". The rest of the work would have consisted of modification of some configuration files and then in preparing the game for release on Steam.
The study claims it can prove this thesis, as he would have downloaded the version of Steam released by Nacon and successfully tried his encryption key on the copy. “The hackers didn't even bother using a different encryption key than the one we created during the recompile,” the study wrote.
From there, the update moves into a relatively complex explanation of what has been changed and how, along with further allegations of steps Nacon has taken. "To hide the fraudulent exploitation of the game on Steam" and other platforms. A summary video, available at this address, summarizes the characters of the accusation.
Frogwares also claims that the developer's credentials on the account indicate that the files were uploaded by a Nacon employee.
Frogwares pointed out that No.does not hold Steam or Gamesplanet responsible for its allegations, saying he fully believes the Gamesplanet version was legally purchased and that Steam had no reasonable way of knowing the build's true origins. He doesn't mince words about Nacon, though.
"Nacon has shown that she is willing to do everything possible to serve her interests, including illegal actions," said Frogwares. "They ignored the decision of the Justice and circumvented them, pirating The Sinking City to deceive their partners, Steam in the first place".
“There is long-term damage we need to deal with, Nacon unpacked our data, stole our source code and used it. Nacon can create a new version of The Sinking City using our resources; they can resell, reuse, recycle our content and tools etc. We need to measure what happened now and take the best legal route to prevent something like this from happening again.".
Nacon's response
Made even more bizarre, the dispute between the two companies continued to unfold on Sinking City's new Steam page as well, which both seem to still have access to.
This is Nacon's reply post:
“We are sorry that Frogwares persists in stopping the release of Sinking City. It's easy to play the victim, but all we're looking for is for Frogwares to honor his commitments both in the contract and as required by the courts. As for the feedback on the release of Sinking City on Steam, this is an official and full version. However, due to the lack of cooperation with Frogwares, we are unable to integrate Steam specific features (cloud save / achievements). Hence, this version contains only the base game, without any additional content. Despite this, we have organized the release so that fans on Steam can enjoy the game ”.
In an update posted on the page a few hours later, Frogwares flatly stated that the version of The Sinking City now on Steam "is a pirated version".
All claims against Nacon are not proven, but the fact that Frogwares is willing to do them so openly is remarkable in itself.
Now we can only wait and see how this sad story unfolds.
