Developer: Publisher Nacon has cracked our game and put it on Steam – Gaming – News

Ukrainian developer Frogwares says publisher Nacon has cracked his game The Sinking City and released it illegally on Steam. The two parties previously had an agreement, but it has been canceled. The companies have been disputing for some time.

The Sinking City staat since late February on Steam, in the name of publisher Nacon and with Frogwares as developer. Since the release of the Steam version, the developer has said that players will receive those don’t have to buybecause it is not the official version.

According to Frogwares, publisher Nacon bought the game on Gamesplanet, cracked that version, then submitted a pirated copy to Valve, which version is now available on Steam. In a video on YouTube in in a blog post the developer explains exactly how that went according to them.

Nacon, known as Bigben Interactive a year ago, has been trying the master of the game through lawsuits, but twice a French judge has ruled that Frogwares does not have to hand it over to the publisher. A lawsuit is still pending over Nacon’s publishing of the Steam version, which Frogwares says won’t be decided until the next months or years.

Frogwares has analyzed the version that is now on Steam and sees traces that prove that it is the version of the game that the developer released on Gamesplanet. Nacon has cracked the game, removed logos and the executable adjusted. The publisher also needed an encryption key for that, and Frogwares says it is known how the company got hold of it. The developer does not provide details about this, but the studio wants to provide this as evidence in a lawsuit.

According to Frogwares, Nacon copied the Deluxe version of the game and put it on Steam. It contains DLC released after the collaboration between Frogwares and Nacon came to an end. The Ukrainian developer therefore accuses the French publisher of stealing this content.

Nacon says according to Eurogamer in a comment that Steam only has the regular version of the game and that the publisher has the right to publish it. Nacon says he has paid more than ten million euros to Frogwares for the development of the game. The studio wants to revise the terms in the contract in their own favor, according to the publisher. According to Nacon, the Steam version is an official release and not a pirated copy.

The Sinking City came out in 2019, but after the game came out, Frogwares and Nacon had an argument about payouts and entitlements. Frogwares thus broke the cooperation with the publisher and removed the game from digital download stores. According to the studio, payments were hundreds of days behind and Nacon only had the right to publish the game, while the publisher also claims to have rights to intellectual property.

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