A classical horror story between an indie studio (Alkemi) working with a publisher (Topware) to get its game ("Transcripted") on the market, no TLDR you should read everything ;)
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/PugetAlain/20141118/230420/Nearly_Ripped_off_to_death_by_a_publisher__Get_better_by_yourself_and_wait_for_justice_Maybe.php

Amazing how they can just get away with just ignoring a dev like that.

I made a post on Ravens Cry (published by Topware) on Steam, hopefully people can pop over and add some support?

http://steamcommunity.com/app/281130/discussions/0/624075482725081987/

That's a bit depressing.

Poor devs : (

disgusting. I wonder how many devs went under because they couldnt afford to litigate the matter, and chose not to publish the reasons why, instead vowing not to make any more games. This publisher is predatory and should be investigated

Yet another reason, in this day and age of digital platforms, why you shouldn't EVER use a publisher if you're a small indie company.

Wonder how much profit they got (or are getting) by doing such inhuman actions.

Have you seen the DLH.net giveaways? everytime you enter the site, a pop-up of steam store page of Raven's Cry appears, so probably, TopWare is investing all the stolen money in promoting their newest game.

Yes, German courts can be terrible.
I won't write that I am ashamed of them just because I'm German myself... but it sucks to read stuff like that.

I wish the developers the best of luck.

Kinda like Gearbox with Aliens I guess.

I usually (usually) don't get involved in these issues, but it's awful to see a publisher like that spending 1 million usd to port games to linux and not treating their "in-house" developers right

http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/topware-interactive-give-more-details-about-two-worlds-2-other-games.2572

And I like their games, and got excited (kinda) for Raven's Cry -even though the devs are right: their PR people are terrible- even without watching a single gameplay video of it!

The bullshit about the oral contract is just absurd. Can they seriously argue that? What's the point of written contracts if any part can claim it got modified off the record and actually count on it being legally binding? I really don't get it.

Sounds like it wouldn't nor won't stand up in court but does cause a big delay, which is probably what they were after.

wow that's pretty terrible

Fucking disgusting!