I tend to agree with you Meryl. The problem is we game players rarely learn of the nasty actions until too late. I will follow your lead as much as I have supported gog I will with hold any future purchases from them until I am satisfied they did the right thing regarding Johnathan. I, don't even own any of his games but recognize his talent and support his right to receive payment for what he has earned.

I feel really badly for Jonathan. He's set the gold standard for horror adventures and is the last person in this industry that should be the victim of something like that.

That said, I imagine a huge part of the problem has been the shift over to releasing games/software through downloads online rather than through the traditional retail boxed versions. I can see inifinite possibilities for copyright, trademark, licensing, IP theft and royalties issues where digital software is involved. It's convenient, it's cheaper, but this is precisely the kind of problem that can happen when developers turn their product over to multiple distributors/merchants that they are never dealing with face to face.

Shame on GOG and all those taking advantage of the likes of Jonathon Boakes. It is so unfair.

Just my humble two cents on this mess: don't jump into the angry mob yelling "BURN GOG!", because if you do, then you will have to go after these ones two:

Dotemu (Dark Fall The Journal and Dark Fall Lights Out)
Amazon (Dark Fall Lights Out and Dark Fall the Journal)

In both cases, the publisher is the same as in GOG: Nordic Games.

On the other hand, you can find that the Dark Fall games are being sold in at least 3 other digital distribution sites, with Iceberg Interactive as the publisher:

Green Man Gaming
Gamersgate
GameFly

Dark fall Lights Out is also being sold here, but I couldn't figure out who the publisher is in this case.

I'm not very familiar with digital distribution sites, so there might be a lot more out there. This was just a quick search I did.

GOG is one of the best companies in listening to their client base. They care a lot for customer opinions (just an example, Cat Lady, initially rejected by GOG, eventually will be soon added to their catalog, because of fans asking them and campaigning to get the game there). I'm guessing they wouldn't willingly risk getting possible customers against them.

Not only this, but in the past, they have removes games from their catalog, in extremely fast manner (causing customer complains because of that), precisely in situations like this one: publishing rights issues (while other digital distribution sites still kept them available). So they take this kind of things pretty serious.

I'm not aware of the full details of publishing rights, laws, what Boakes might have suffered with previous struggles or what contracts might have been signed, I'm assuming this will be one of hell of a mess to resolve. Hope everything turn's out all right for all of the involved people and we see those games (and the others by Boakes) available in GOG very soon!

The problem is that Nordic bought the Adventure Company catalogue. It is not possible to boycott them without boycotting the whole industry of adventure games...

If I were making a game now, I would sell it myself. I think we are moving towards bypassing publishers with sites like gog, Steam, Windows store, Apple store, etc. I hope.

Publishers used to provide the financing, but now they appear only interested in selling a finished product they have not financed, and collecting the profits. And they don't even pay royalties... Is this a new form of capitalism?

You need to get your facts in order before blaming anyone, especially GOG.

The biggest problem is with Dreamcatcher, which made a practice of not paying their developers. Detalion, Galilea, Microids Canada, and probably also Kheops, were not paid residuals from sales as contracted and are now out of business. Frogwares was also not paid, and thehood from Frogwares has posted as much here at Gameboomers and other adventure game forums. I don't doubt Jon Boakes wasn't paid either -- and responded with a "Cease and Desist" order claiming Dreamcatcher could no longer publish the game since they'd broken contract by not paying. But that wasn't the end of it because Dreamcatcher sold the rights to Nordic.

I have no proof that Nordic knew there was any dispute about any games in the catalog they'd bought from Dreamcatcher until Jon Boakes wrote them about it. And GOG as well as Amazon and DotEMU probably thought that Nordic owned the rights.

I don't do Facebook, but Barry_Woodward in the ***Dark Fall Creator Dissapointed*** thread over in the GOG forum quoted from Jon Boakes' facebook page

So it sounds like they're working it out. It would be premature to boycott these companies (and possibly Jon Boakes himself) because of something Dreamcatcher did.

The misspelling of the word "Disappointed" in "Dark Fall Creator Disappointed" is how the thread name is spelled over there.

It seems (from what appeared on my facebook wall) that this time it's not the case of "evil publisher" fighting developers but rather a case of bad communication coupled with Dreamcatcher demise and their last blow(and yes Dreamcatcher / Dreamcrusher was evil).

However the key point stays. If I like certain developer, I buy the game from them directly even if it could mean a little discomfort for me. This way the developer gets significantly more money and usually provides me with a DRM free version and better support, too.

Thanks Jenny100
A much clearer view of things.

Are you referring to me? I posted facts.



This was going on long before downloads. There were many popular developers that did not receive a cent on retail boxes sold. The only difference is that we weren't allowed to publicly discuss it.

And, as a sidenote, I never requested anyone to boycott GoG, I am merely posting what was transpiring.

Nooo! not you Ana, just a general response to some of the replies.

Thanks Anne, I had no idea who you were referring to and I was confused why you would be directing it to me.

Ana

Really sorry about that Ana, you are one of the special people here.

Thanks Anne

I never knew you could buy games direct from the developer. I'd be happy to do this even at a higher cost.
Will Jonathan be selling his next game direct?