It seems like above all this is an issue stemming from Nordic and Dreamcatcher.

GOG certainly is acting in good faith and doing what they can to help resolve the situation.

This quickly turned from an "OMG IS GOG EVIL?!?!" thread into a "GOOD ON YOU GOG!" thread.

Oh internet.

He will release them on Steam .

I certainly don't mean GOG is beyond making mistakes. But it sounds like GOG was acting based on information from Dreamcatcher/Nordic, and without proper paperwork they probably weren't able to send the developer payments.

Not any single party's fault purely per se, but from my understanding boils down to miscommunication and a lack of proper paperwork among multiple parties.

As mentioned a few times in the thread, this is an issue with other distributors as well.

The thing is, in the end it may appear that the dev signed some kind of agreement with Dreamcatcher that left him without any rights to the games. We know nothing about the situation. Some devs tend to sign deals they don't understand and later they are surprised. Not knowing that Amazon sells your game is telling me that this guy is not someone who is aware what happens to his games.

lol one of them is on steam...but he probably does not know that...


seriously, i would believe him a lot more if his games had not been on these sites for a long time....i mean unless he is living in cave...i guess that could be possible

It's an instant karmic car wash.

W-what? S-stupid StingingVelvet chan. Always saying such things.

Take them off GOG and release them exclusively on Steam? F**k that.

LOL.

It all smells fishy:

A dev with 3 year old games that doesn't know where they're being sold, or can prove he owns them.
A publisher that snaps them up and 're'-brands them.
A digital game download site that then markets them.

I don't think anyone will be losing out except us, the buyers ;)

So wait, Steam, GOG, etc, etc. have been selling this guy's game for who even knows how long and he didn't notice until today? Nobody told him??? WTF?

Probably something else I should've picked up before they were pulled. At least that last bunch made it back. WTF ever happened to Chessmaster I wonder. Second Sight, XIII...

OK, so...

He claims he sent GOG a Cease and Desist order, which they ignored.

He then posts on facebook, and within an hour or so, GOG removes the games?

What? Does that make any sense? Why would they ignore a C&D but respond to a stupid facebook post?

Also he has yet to really explain why Nordic would *think* they have the rights when they don't. It's very confusing. Honestly my best bet is that he's being honest but he just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Doesn't sound fishy at all. At least not on the part of the publisher and GOG :)

GOG is selling them as they were told by the publisher that they had the rights to sell them (which they MAY very well have).

All that's happening right now is the developer is having a hissy fit on Facebook and, IMO, acting very unprofessionally and, it seems, without even bothering to contact GOG first. As someone else said, it's highly probably the publisher DOES have the rights to sell them and the developer just 'forgot' he signed away the rights to them when he signed the original contract.

Boakes originally signed the game to The Adventure Company, which was subsequently sold. The original contract could very easily have been signed saying the rights to publish the game could be sold on and Boakes has conveniently 'forgotten' this.

Major publishers aren't stupid. They usually have signed contracts before they start selling games under their label. :)

I'm also presuming it's Boakes that's now selling the games on The Darkling Room -- http://www.darklingroom.co.uk/darkfallgames/darkfall3/ -- He could very well be doing that illegally, depending on who has the rights, and now be trying to cover himself by denying he signed a contract to another publisher.

Oh and btw, the first game is more than TEN years old and not three.

You're not missing much :)

I played the first two and they're not very good. I wanted them to be as I'm British and love supporting British developers. Unfortunately, they're more of the 'been-there-done-that' genre and poor examples at that.

I think that if he could go this long without realizing his games were being sold online (GOG, Steam, hell even Amazon) then he probably was foolish enough to sign away the distribution rights. Glad I never bought any of his games now.

Why would Nordic NOT have their ducks in a row on something like this? It's not as if they are relying on Dark Fall to keep them afloat...