The fight between Frogwares and Nacon over The Sinking City has gone to the next level. While this isn’t the first time this happened, however, it is rather interesting to know what Frogwares did to make it happen.
Let's start from the beginning. It all began back in 2020 when developer Frogwares alleged that Nacon was in breach of the contract. As a result, Frogwares pulled the game from different platforms in August 2020. But Nacon managed to get a victory in court and by January 2021, the game was back on Steam.
With the game already on Steam, Frogwares issued a statement saying that the version on Steam was not the official version and warned potential customers not to buy it. Read more about it here.
Before we continue, Frogwares released additional details on why they claimed that version on Steam was a “pirated” version made by Nacon. You can watch the video below:
If you’ve watched the video, one of the arguments Frogwares is putting forward is that the version released on Steam in January didn’t have the developer’s logo. Besides, there was also no main menu advert.
The DMCA Way
So, how did Frogwares get the game removed on Steam again? Frogwares simply sent a DMCA takedown notice and sent it to Valve, which appeared to have sided with Frogwares. In a report, Valve said that the removal from Steam was indeed a consequence of the notice.
In another report, Frogwares said they were confident about the takedown notice after they received some strong evidence indicating that version to be pirated. Frogwares also argued that they have a ruling from an appeals court stating that they don’t need to release a Steam version of the game.
Nacon, meanwhile, said in a report that the reason why they released that particular version was due to Frogwares' refusal to give them the Steam version. In the same report, Nacon added that they continue to own the distribution rights of the game.
It seems that this fight won’t be going away anytime soon. What about you? Whose side are you on in this fight?
