EDIT: Slight correction. I said Focus published The Sinking City. It was in fact Big Ben Interactive that published TSC. Focus handled the Sherlock Holmes games.
Focus Home Interactive was on track to being my favorite game publisher after stepping up to serve the mid-tier market in an industry crammed full of greed “AAA” tripe.
Unfortunately, Frogwares has stated that Focus is delisting its games over a licensing dispute. The distribution agreement between Frogwares and Focus has ended, but Focus isn’t giving the right to sell the games back to the studio.
Frogwares makes the Sherlock Holmes games and the recent glorious mess that is The Sinking City. Focus has published those games alongside belters like The Surge 2, Vampyr, and A Plague Tale: Innocence.
So really… this news thoroughly sucks.
#Frogwares #Focus #TheSinkingCity #JimSterling #IndustryBS
Oh wow, who knew that a publisher would screw over studios when they could?
Fun Fact: _all hope is lost and you were a fool to think otherwise._
I got two ads before this video. Both 5 seconds or so.
Youtube REALLY likes you now
So they just stole the games from the developers? Wow…
When a company can make money off of someone’s labor, they don’t care what they have to do to get that money. The worst part of this story is that they can totally get away with this.
Uhm… Is that “policy change” even legal? I wouldn’t think that would be legal…
Well this is what I get for 1) waiting to buy the game and 2) starting to really like FHI
Focus Home Interactive: IF I CAN’T MAKE MONEY FROM IT NO ONE WILL MAKE MONEY FROM IT!!! BURN IT!!!
Hopefully Focus realizes that it needs those devs, to stay afloat and that doing this will warn other devs from working with focus to the point where they submit and remove this policy.
Act of Aggression (2015) was removed from Steam recently with no explanation. As the developers Eugen Systems parted with Focus in 2017, I wonder if this is the reason.
This just serves as further reinforcement of Jim’s idea that the time of publishers’ usefulness in the game industry has long since passed.
Pretty sure changing the ownership clauses in a contract without the other side of that contract’s knowledge or approval is illegal. The only way this won’t end up in court is if Frogwares aren’t telling the whole story, or just don’t have a lawyer.
Just goes to show, you can’t trust ANY publisher.
“Can I not just like one thing and have it not be shit?”
Urgh, preach.
Sinking City was published by BigBen, not Focus Home. Focus Home published last years’ Call of Cthulhu (developed by Cyanide, who were also acquired by BigBen last year)
BigBen has been poaching a bunch of developers that used to work with Focus- They bought Cyanide and Spiders outright, and they’ve partnered up with FrogWares to publish the Sinking City. The publishing rights for the new Werewolf: the Apocalypse RPG that Cyanide were supposed to be making also went to BigBen.
I suspect that Focus is pissed off at this, but taking stuff out on developers is not the right way to do this. If anything, it’s likely to discourage other developers from working with them, which is a shame.
Focus has done an amazing job supporting small to mid-tier devs like Spiders, Asobo, Cyanide, Deck 13, StreumOn, etc. They’ve partnered up with several other small, promising devs to help publish Kickstarter successes like OmniCide and others;
I REALLY, really like them as a publisher, and like Jim I hope they can stay a positive influence in the industry.
“Can I not just like one thing and have it not be shit?”
Devolver Digital? How about a video on them?
“Can I not like one thing and have it turn out to be not shit.”
I feel that so bad when it comes to the industry.
“I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further”
Slight correction. I said Focus published The Sinking City. It was in fact Big Ben Interactive that published TSC. Focus handled the Sherlock Holmes games. The good news there is that Focus at least can’t delist that delightful mess of a game.