© Image: Frogwares
You can finally buy The Sinking City on Steam once again, but the game's original developer Frogwares says that it's uninvolved with this particular release of the game on PC. The Sinking City is an investigative horror game with some serious Lovecraftian vibes. The Sinking City, a Lovecraftian horror detective game from the Ukrainian studio Frogwares, returned to Steam on Friday after a monthslong absence. The Sinking City was removed from Steam and other storefronts last year, the result of an ongoing legal conflict between developer Frogwares and publisher Nacon. Tensions between the companies have. Last week, The Sinking City launched on Steam only for Frogwares to implore players on Twitter not to purchase that version of the game, raising a lot of questions as to why. Frogwares has since posted a lengthy blog post explaining that Nacon allegedly had employees “crack, hack and pirate” a version of The Sinking City to release on Steam.
The Sinking City, a Lovecraftian horror detective game from the Ukrainian studio Frogwares, returned to Steam on Friday after a monthslong absence. But Frogwares alleges that the game being sold on Valve’s platform isn’t actually the game it made — the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Frogwares and Nacon, the French company that published The Sinking City.
“Frogwares has not created the version of @thesinkingcity that is today on sale on @Steam,” Frogwares said in a tweet on Friday. “We do not recommend the purchase of this version. More news soon.”
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, 2021If you look at the Steam page for The Sinking City, you’ll see an announcement posted Friday morning saying that the game is “now available on Steam,” offering a 60% discount for the next week. Publishers control what appears in a Steam listing, and it appears that Nacon wrote this post to alert potential customers that the game had returned to the platform.
But Frogwares used a clever tactic to sneak its message onto Steam: The News section of a product’s Steam page pulls tweets from sources including Frogwares’ official account, which is how the aforementioned tweet asking people not to buy the Steam version of The Sinking City .. appeared on Steam. (It no longer shows up there, but here’s a screenshot we took.)
At the moment, Frogwares’ official website links to not to the Steam listing, but a version up for sale on Gamesplanet. The listing on Steam is heavily discounted — $16 after the 60% discount, compared to $42.49 on Gamesplanet. Frogwares has not confirmed this information itself, but recent customer reviews on Steam allege that the version of The Sinking City being sold there is not the most up-to-date iteration of the game.
This development is but one of a series of conflicts between Frogwares and Nacon since The Sinking City launched in the summer of 2019. The game disappeared from most online storefronts in August 2020 due to a dispute over royalties. At the time, Frogwares claimed in an open letter that Nacon owed the studio “roughly 1 million euros” and had published misleading marketing that implied Nacon was the game’s developer.
In October, the Paris Court of Appeal handed down an initial ruling saying that Frogwares unlawfully terminated its contract, and ordered Frogwares to “refrain from any action on the breach of this contract, [and to] refrain from any action that impedes this continuation.” That decision led Nacon, in early January, to ask distributors to begin selling The Sinking City again. The game returned to the Xbox Store at the time, and is now back on Steam as well as the PlayStation Store; it has also been available on Nintendo Switch. Nacon noted in its January statement that the legal battle is “still pending before the French courts for several months.”
We’ve reached out to Frogwares, Nacon, and Valve for comment, and we’ll update this article as we hear back.
Under normal circumstances, developers desperately want people to buy their games from Steam.
But when it comes to The Sinking City, these are very much not normal circumstances.
The H. P. Lovecraft-inspired horror adventure returned to Steam yesterday - and it didn't take long for the developer to warn potential customers not to buy the game.
In a tweet, Ukrainian developer Frogwares said it had not created the version of The Sinking City made available to buy on Steam this week. 'We do not recommend the purchase of this version,' it said.
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
This version was published by Nacon, the company Frogwares has endured a long-running dispute with over control of the game.
Back in August 2020, Frogwares pulled The Sinking City from sale a year after it filed a lawsuit against Nacon, the French video game company formed from the consolidation of the Bigben group ahead of an IPO.
Frogwares alleged Nacon tried to claim copyright of The Sinking City after its release, withheld milestone payments, and owed the developer around €1m in unpaid royalties.
'We did our best to deal with this quietly and amicably but to no avail,' Frogwares boss Wael Amr said at the time.
Heroes of magic and might for mac. Then, in October 2020, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled Frogwares acted unlawfully when it pulled The Sinking City from sale, and ordered the developer to refrain from any further action that would affect its contract with Nacon until the dispute between the two parties was resolved.
This decision opened the door to The Sinking City's return to Steam. But before Nacon managed it, in January 2021 Frogwares released the game on Valve's platform - although it was pulled soon after.
Now, a month later, Nacon has put The Sinking City back on Steam, and already it's getting review-bombed, with customers complaining that the latest release appears to be an old version of the game.
Overall, the reviews are 'mostly negative'. 'This is an old version of the game,' wrote Steam user LizDeLaFuentez.
'There's no DLC, no cloud saves, no achievements.. This is NOT the same version that got released by Frogwares early January, and Frogwares hasn't released any news about this release, so I doubt they'll ever see the money, which is why I'd recommend staying away from this until they do!
'My negative review has nothing to do with the quality of the game, just the scummy publisher.' Movavi 3d media player for mac.
'Game is actually fun,' wrote Acadius. 'Bought it cause I like everything related to Lovecraft. And then I heard about this version and what happened between the developer and the publisher. I do not support that. Asking for a refund and will buy from Frogwares.'
Sunken City Steam
In January 2021, Nacon said it was 'continuing its action in defense of its rights' and had asked platforms and sites to put The Sinking City back online 'so that no one is held hostage to this situation'.
The Sinking City Steam Release Date 2020
Nacon continued: 'It is however specified that insofar as some of the game's online stakes depend on the goodwill of Frogwares to perform, their absence cannot be attributed to Nacon.'
The Sinking City Steam Discussion
In response to one Twitter user who said 'Jesus Christ the nightmare never ends,' Frogwares replied: 'yes.'
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