Wow, sounds like one of those games that you should absolutely pirate instead of buying.
I mean. The founder asked for it. After the first game, the studio made millions. they can totally self-publish without answer to others. However, the founder sold the company for $500 million in 2021. And additional $250 million based on milestones (which they won鈥檛 get).
Is everybody in this story greedy? Yes. Will I sell my company for $500 million given the opportunity? Yes. But I probably take the money start a new game studio and take the original devs with me.
As nice as that sounds, you鈥檙e just asking for a gigantic lawsuit, most likely.
Shades of ZA/UM here. Ousting the studio founders and original creators of the first game seemingly to avoid paying out bonuses.
Greedy greedy assholes
Greedy publishers screwing over Devs, or a dev shoving unfinished slop out in order to get a bonus?
I can鈥檛 think of any instances of publishers earning the right to receive the benefit of the doubt, in fact it鈥檚 usually them rushing out shit.
Not familiar with either of the parties in this case but did get a bit burned with Cities Skylines 2
It is almost every single time publishers demanding shit get released faster than its ready for. Not the devs
Greedy publishers screwing over Devs, or a dev shoving unfinished slop out in order to get a bonus?
Ultimately, I would still put blame on the publisher for dangling such a huge incentive over the devs heads. They probably didn鈥檛 think the devs could actually pull it off and are now scrambling to convince everyone it really isn鈥檛 ready.
They released a statement saying the original devs weren鈥檛 working at all even after requesting multiple times.