In what appears to be an episode out of The Twilight Zone, developer Frogwares is requesting potential players not to buy The Sinking City on Steam. The same game that they developed, and in fact, already released.
The Sinking City is a game that’s inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft and was released in June 2019 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. A version for Nintendo Switch was later launched in September 2019.
During that time, Frogwares had given Nacon, formerly BigBen Interactive, the license to distribute the game. However, their agreement was ended with Frogwares stating violation of intellectual property, in particular, resulting in a perception that it didn’t own the game. The developer also cited the lack of payment.
Eventually, this resulted in the game being pulled from different platforms like Steam and Epic Games, among others, by August 2020. At this time, Frogwares already had an ongoing legal battle with Nacon.
Though early this year, Nacon got a small victory from the ongoing legal battle. The court ruled that Frogwares had terminated the contract with Nacon in an “unlawful” manner. Because of this, The Sinking City became available again on the Microsoft Store.
The game has since arrived on Steam and is currently offered at a 60% discount. This resulted in Frogwares tweeting that they were not responsible for that version and “do not recommend” buying that particular version.
Frogwares has not created the version of @thesinkingcity that is today on sale on @Steam. We do not recommend the purchase of this version. More news soon.
— Frogwares (@Frogwares) February 26, 2021
According to a report, that same tweet had appeared on the game’s page on Steam yet it got removed. Still, that hasn’t escaped the eyes of some players who have since appeared to be review bombing the game on Steam. The same report also cited that this version of the game appears to be “outdated,” meaning it didn’t have any of the new features like cloud saves and achievements.
While it may be facing some issues with Steam, it seems that there’s no issue with The Sinking City appearing on PlayStation Store and being made available for the PS5. Frogwares said they were able to offer the game for the PS5 since they were both listed as the developer and publisher of that version.
What do you think? Is Frogwares doing the right thing?
