Following recent allegations against publisher PQube, AeternoBlade II developer Corecell Technology also sued PQube, alleging that the publisher withheld payments.
Just last week, the developers behind A Space for the Unbound accused PQube of “exploitative” and manipulative behavior. Now the developer of AeternoBlade II, his Corecell has its own charges against PQube.
Another indie developer has filed a complaint against publisher PQube
“The past three years have been tough. Ever since I signed a publishing deal with PQube, I’ve struggled to bounce back.” Coresell says“But now is the time to reveal the truth. Hopefully this will help other indie game developers avoid what happened to us and let fans know about our situation. â
According to Corecell, PQube has been responsible for publishing AeternoBlade II in Europe since October 2019, saying, “Under the publishing contract with us, they agreed to pay a minimum guarantee. but they never paid the rest of the milestones.â The developers tried to resolve this with PQube, but eventually terminated their publishing deal in September 2020. I argue that I had to. They also claim that PQube never gave back publishing control on the console platform and “continues to sell all proceeds from AeternoBlade II.”
The statement continued, PQube “offered to hand over control of the public disclosure to us only if you agreed to keep this matter confidential, but we do not wish to be involved in any further transactions with PQube. Corecell argued that as an indie developer they could not sue in other countries, asking each platform to return publishing control, while Nintendo and Sony removed the game from their European stores. Corecell has yet apparently “received no revenue” from sales in Europe. As a result of all this, Corecelll said, “We had to do a variety of additional work to recover from our financial situation.” He added, “We don’t want any negative or harmful actions towards PQube. All we want is to explain the situation to the fans, undo the game and move on.”
Then PQube responded.the statement was shared at euro gamer:
At a post-launch meeting in January 2020, Corecell acknowledged significant product quality issues and agreed to provide critical fixes to make the game commercially viable. Unfortunately, these fixes never materialized and Corecell remained unresponsive. PQube was willing to pay a full guarantee for the game despite very poor reviews and sales, and was ready to publish his PC version in line with his PQube’s option in the deal. Corecell said he agreed to provide his PC version to his PQube in March 2020, but then proceeded to list and release the PC version itself without further discussion with PQube. I was.
Over the next two years, PQube put forward and submitted numerous proposals and sponsorship agreements to return rights to Corecell in line with its demands, which were not approved by Corecell. Nevertheless, despite all the challenges and lack of communication from Corecell, PQube handed the rights to the console version back to Corecell well before his contract expired. We will support Corecell wherever possible.
Throughout our 12-year history of distribution and publishing, we have worked with dozens of partners and released over 200 games. PQube has a proud history of working with developers large and small. We continue to publish multiple projects and sequels from existing partnerships, from established global IPs to championing independent projects for small teams. P-cube.
We have always focused on maximizing our partners’ outcomes and fully supporting them through all stages of the product lifecycle. When issues arise that are inevitable in the gaming industry for such a long period of time, we have always tried to resolve them in a fair and reasonable manner.
We continue to focus on doing great work for our partners. We continually work to develop and improve all aspects of our business and are committed to providing the best possible service and success to all our partners. “
