The Frogwares version of the city drowned on steam claims they do not

Drowned city, A Lovecraftian horror detective game from Ukrainian studio Frogwear, returned to Steam on Friday after a month’s absence. But the frog alleges that the game being sold on Valve’s platform is not actually such a game – the latest development in the ongoing feud between Frogwar and Naikan, the French company that published Drowned city.

“Frogwares has not produced the version of @thesinkingcity that is on sale today on @Steam,” Frogwar said in a tweet on Friday. “We do not recommend purchasing this version. More news soon

If you look at the steam page Drowned city, You will see an announcement posted on Friday morning that the game is “now available on Steam”, offering a discount of 60% for the following week. Publishers control what appears in a Steam listing, and it appears that Nakan wrote the post to warn potential customers that the game was back on stage.

But Frogwares used a clever tactic to sneak its message on Steam: The news section of a product’s Steam page draws tweets from sources, including Frogwares’ official account, to make the aforementioned tweet people not buy the Steam version Is saying Drowned city … Appeared on Steam. (It no longer shows there, but here’s a screenshot.)

Picture: Valve through report door

At the moment, Frogwar’s official website has a version not for Steam listing, but for sale on Gamesplanet. The listing on Steam is heavily discounted – $ 16 after a 60% discount, compared to $ 42.49 on Gamesplanet. Frogwares itself has not confirmed this information, but according to recent customer reviews on Steam it has a version Drowned city Being sold is not the most up-to-date running of the game.

This is development, but since a series of conflicts between Frogwar and Nakan Drowned city Launched in summer of 2019. The game disappeared from most online storefronts in August 2020 due to a dispute over royalties. At the time, Frogevers claimed in an open letter that Nakan’s studio was owed “around 1 million euros” and had published misleading marketing that speculated that Nakan was the developer of the game.

In October, the Paris Court of Appeal delivered a preliminary ruling, stating that the Frogwars terminated their contract illegally, and ordered Frogwar to refrain from any action on the breach of this contract, [and to] Refraining from any action that impedes this continuity. “This decision led Naikan to ask distributors to start selling, in early January Drowned 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 is also available on the Nintendo Switch. Nacken noted in his January statement that the legal battle was “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.