Publisher Nacon cracked Frogwares' game The Sinking City and published it on Steam!

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The Ukrainian game developer Frogwares says that publisher Nacon cracked their game The Sinking city and published it under their own name on Steam. The 2 parties had a contract earlier, but after some disputes, the contract got broken.

 

At the end of February, peoples were able to buy the game The Sinking City on Steam. The information provided on Steam said that the developer is Frogwares and the publisher Nacon. At this time of writing, the game already got pulled from Steam by Valve after complaints of Frogwares, telling them and the potential players that the version provided on Steam is a cracked version of their game and thus not the official version of the game.

According to Frogwares, the game got bought by Nacon, through legal channels, on Gamesplanet. That bought version got cracked and then delivered to Valve. On YouTube, there is a video in which the actual developer, Frogwares, explains how the game got cracked.

Nacon, formerly known as Bigben Interactive, already tried 2 times before to get their hands on the master of the game through various lawsuits but both times the French judge decided that Frogwares doesn't have to give their game to the publisher. At the moment there is an active lawsuit about the publication of the cracked version of the game, by Nacon, but that can still take many months or even years to come.

Frogwares analyzed the published version on Steam and came to the conclusion that the cracked game is originating from a legally obtained version of the game (by Nacon) on Gamesplanet. Nacon cracked the game, removed some logos, changed them with their own logo, altered the executable file so that some related stuff to Frogwares was no longer visible (think of Frogwares' other games like Sherlock Holmes Chapter One), recompiled everything and delivered it to Valve as their own game. 

In order to crack the game like that, Nacon needed an Unreal Engine 4 encryption key. A key that is only in the hands of the Frogwares developers. Frogwares claims that they know how Nacon got their hands on their encryption key but they do not want to tell anything more. They want to use this powerful information in court instead. The reason why Frogwares is pretty certain of their case is that they downloaded the Steam version (from Nacon) themselves and used their very own encryption key to decompile the game and it worked like a charm. Nacon didn't even take the time to use another encryption key to recompile the game as their own.

Another thing Frogwares discovered is that Nacon made Valve publish the deluxe version of the game. The game The Sinking City, which was found on Steam in late February, included extra content that was originally developed after the game was already done and was meant to be DLC content. Also, this extra content was made after the 2 companies broke the contract they had with each other. 

Nacon, on their side, claims that the version that was found on Steam for a brief moment is a legal version of the game and as being the publishers, they had the right to publish the game on there. They claim that they paid Frogwares more than 10 million Euros for the development of the game. 

This is Nacon's statement about the matter:

"For the release of The Sinking City on Steam, published by Nacon, Frogwares posted on Twitter urging players not to buy it. We regret that Frogwares persists in disrupting the release of the Sinking City. It was Frogwares who 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. It was Frogwares that relied on our marketing and promotion teams, representing thousands of hours of work and several million euros worth of investment. Now that the game has been fully developed, and published, largely thanks to Nacon's money and work, Frogwares would like to revise the terms of the contract to their sole advantage. It's easy to play the victim, but all we seek is that Frogwares respect its commitments both in the contract and as demanded by the courts.

In regards to feedback on the release of the Sinking City on Steam, this is an official and complete version. However, due to a lack of cooperation with Frogwares, we are unable to integrate Steam-specific features (cloud saving/achievements). Thus, this version contains only the base game, without any additional content. Despite this, we have organised the release so that fans on Steam can enjoy the game.

We sincerely would have preferred that our relationship with Frogwares remain cooperative and respectful, as is the case with all of the studios whose titles we publish.

We hope that many of you will continue to play The Sinking City, and may your adventures in Oakmont be a lot of fun."

The Sinking City got published back in 2019. After the release, the 2 companies, Frogwares and Nacon, got into a fight regarding payments and rights. Frogwares broke the contract that they had with Nacon and removed the game from all digital download shops. 

As of today, nothing is known yet whether the game is coming back to Steam. You can still buy the game on Gamesplanet, which is an officially licensed reseller since 2006. 

Replies • 35

I think there are bad players on both sides of this fight. If someone funds you into the millions of Euros, you are obligated to give them what they are owed. However, that doesn't give you the right to publish a basically pirated version of the game by yourself.









Вроде прикольная игруха, если по Лавкрафту то вообще зачёт!!!