Posted September 26, 2019
I'm a big fan of Focus Home Interactive (publisher) but recently it seems they're playing "dirty" with one of their devs Frogwares (Sherlock Holmes series, The Sinking City, etc.).
Frogwares' is an independent dev studio that has published most of their Sherlock Holmes games through Focus Home. Recently the licensing agreements have been running up with the IP rights reverting to Frogwares. Focus Home has thus been removing the games from sale (the articles I saw said they may soon be removed from Steam as well). That seems normal, but...
Focus Home has also suddenly changed their policy to include keeping Frogwares from ever selling those games in the future. In essence, Focus is saying "If we can't sell those games, no one can!" So, Frogwares owns the IP and technically has the rights back to those games, but can't sell them... at least not short of a legal battle.
The tweets and info out of Frogwares sounds kind of dire.
Frogwares' is an independent dev studio that has published most of their Sherlock Holmes games through Focus Home. Recently the licensing agreements have been running up with the IP rights reverting to Frogwares. Focus Home has thus been removing the games from sale (the articles I saw said they may soon be removed from Steam as well). That seems normal, but...
Focus Home has also suddenly changed their policy to include keeping Frogwares from ever selling those games in the future. In essence, Focus is saying "If we can't sell those games, no one can!" So, Frogwares owns the IP and technically has the rights back to those games, but can't sell them... at least not short of a legal battle.
The tweets and info out of Frogwares sounds kind of dire.