Frogwares Games Important Notice

Official statement on removal of our games from storefronts by Focus Home Interactive
Fate of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments still unsure

Hello,

This letter is addressed to everyone who is interested in the video game industry, and wants to take a look at what’s happening behind the curtain.

We are Frogwares, the developer of the Sherlock Holmes video games, and The Sinking City. We make detective games because it’s our passion, and because it allows us to live off it.

But today, that is under threat. Some of our games are being removed from Sony’s and Microsoft’s storefronts, and even maybe from Steam. This list includes our titles like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes Vs. Jack The Ripper and Magrunner: Dark Pulse (see full list below).

Why? Because Focus Home Interactive, the licensee (or “publisher”) that was in charge of commercializing these games on these platforms, refuses to transfer the title IDs to us, the creators and IP owners of those titles, even though our Publishing and Distribution Agreement has expired.

Because, according to their official statement, sent to us only last week, “Focus has put in place a policy in accordance with which they will not transfer any title – the content ID or title ID – belonging to any developer which has removed all of their games from the Focus catalog”.

A policy that is not in any of our previous or existing contracts with Focus and that has never been applied to us in the past.

Because of that policy, our games will be taken down from all storefronts.

As it stands right now, the only game left is Sherlock Holmes Crimes & Punishment which only has until September 29th. It is possible that it will be taken down at this date or earlier if nothing is done. The players will no longer be able to buy and play the game. We will also lose all our wishlists and every other bit of information on those store pages. As the creators and IP owners of all those games, we have no control and no say in this. The decision of Focus Home left us voiceless.

We are in the process of setting up new store profiles, and we are contacting console stores and hope to try and rectify the situation. However, we are unable to confirm if this can be done and already know that it will be impossible for certain games on previous gen, and very costly for others as we will have to update the SDK and that takes months. We are certainly not going to give up, and will pursue this issue through the appropriate channels.

We have always been an independent studio. We worked with many licensees on the grounds of mutual interests and benefits, but it’s the first time in 20 years we have encountered such a situation. We are losing all revenue attached to these games, for some – for an unknown period of time and for other games, forever. This new policy from Focus Home towards former contracted developers will land a serious blow to our studio, threatening our future games and the people who develop them.

Right now, we are in a tough situation. We are preparing ourselves for a significant loss. To those parties that can help us and have influence over the situation – feel free to contact us.

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Full list:

On Steam, PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360: Sherlock Holmes Crimes & Punishments availability ends on September 29th.

Already taken down on PS3: The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Magrunner: Dark Pulse

Already taken down on Xbox 360: Sherlock Holmes versus Jack The Ripper, The Testament Of Sherlock Holmes, Magrunner: Dark Pulse

On Steam, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes Vs. Jack The Ripper and Magrunner: Dark Pulse are published by Frogwares and not by Focus Home Interactive.

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The Sinking City, Sergey Oganesyan published on September 26, 2019

Does this mean if we have games that are already in our library won't run any longer?

I don't have any of these games, but I would be more concerned with the precedent Focus is setting if they can get by with this. I agree with Marian... this seems quite arbitrary.

Most of the games I have on both Steam and GOG except 2 of them and one that I have on GOG and Big Fish (not Steam). I have Crimes & Punishments on disc but it requires Steam. I don't have that on GOG or The Devil's Daughter which I did break down and buy on Steam.

I am also curious about being able to play the games now.

On Steam, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes Vs. Jack The Ripper and Magrunner: Dark Pulse are published by Frogwares and not by Focus Home Interactive.

Because, according to their official statement, sent to us only last week, “Focus has put in place a policy in accordance with which they will not transfer any title – the content ID or title ID – belonging to any developer which has removed all of their games from the Focus catalog”.

I think it sounds like that second thing Jenny: " Or is it saying they won't revert the IP to the developer that created the IP after the contract has expired?"

Anyone hear if 'A Plague Tale: Innocence' is one if the games slated for removal? I know it's not a Frogwares title. It is however a Focus product. It's been on my gaming bucket list and was waiting till it went on sale. Now I may not get to play it if goes. This thing with Focus is sad. Hopefully Frogwares can find a way through this.

Hi,I couldn't download Crimes and Punishments from Steam, although I've played it before (graphic card issue)

Then I downloaded Testament Of Sherlock Holmes from GOG and it's fine, I can play it.

It looks like the Steam page for Crimes & Punishments now lists Frogwares as the publisher instead of FOCUS. Hopefully this means Frogwares now has full control of ALL their PC games that used to have FOCUS as publisher -- and that Crimes & Punishments will eventually appear at GOG like their other games do.

As some of you may be aware, last week we’ve mentioned that some of our games might no longer be available on certain platforms and their stores. We’ve made the announcement on our social media channels, and the news spread like wildfire. Today, we can confirm that we lost 9 store listings out of possible 10. The one listing that was saved was Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments on Steam.

What does this mean? It means that all proceeds from the sale of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments goes to us, the developer. You can say that the game now belongs to us fully.

The one thing that we have to say about last week’s announcement is this. We will be forever grateful for the sheer-amount of public and industry-wide support that we received. We truly appreciate everyone who added their voice to the issue. We were blown-away. To say “thank you” we put together a digital booklet of behind the scenes stories and anecdotes from our Sherlock Holmes games. We called it Sherlock Holmes: Memories, Stories, Thoughts. This booklet is available to download as a Free DLC. It’s a small token of our huge appreciation for the support we received.

The patch is live now and DLC will be available at 4 PM PDT.

So today we announced that 9 out of our 10 games were taken down from Xbox and Playstation following the “policy” of the licensee we entrusted years ago with those titles.
Beyond the obvious sadness that it caused, there was one reason to rejoice: the last game, Sherlock Holmes : Crimes and Punishments, also my most personal title, was not taken down from Steam.
It was not taken down not because we thought fiercely (we didn’t), it was also not because destructive decisions were seen as bad by their petty makers.

The game was not taken down because people reacted.

I don’t think people (I am not a fan of this word for all its ambiguities) reacted because our games are loved beyond measure or our team is filled with glamorous smooth talkers, i believe people reacted because they saw people like them unfairly attacked and threatened.
It was the same reaction inside the studio. It was the same reaction outside the studio.

Maybe I see pink flying cows, but i saw last week a political moment, political in the way that people(again!) react and modify the turn of the tide when we unite.

This week taught me that, not only people from all over the world supported us, they also changed our fate because of what we share.

We won’t travel in first class to the next GDC. We will probably have a normal studio Christmas party without the fountain of champagne and the whole stuffed sturgeon.

But we’ll be together, drunk and naked in the snow as the tradition requires, talking about imaginary characters and game mechanics that don’t exist yet.

I now have 3 versions of the Baskerville game :

The one I originally bought from Frogwares, years ago.

One that appeared suddenly and without notice in my Big Fish library.

[Which is good because I think it's one of the best of its genre.]

I just played Dracula: Love Kills last year and found myself not liking it very much. I was quite disappointed.

I don't remember what I was disappointed with but I did know that it was a casual game so I wasn't expecting serious.

I'm amazed that you have games spontaneously appear without notice in your Big Fish library.
Especially when they're good games.

But I wonder if the game you bought from Frogwares isn't a Big Fish version.
I've had disc versions of games that are published by Big Fish, which don't need online activation but which add themselves to the Big Fish Game Manager.


Yes, I also think it's one of the best.
So is their Dracula casual game.

Emerald City Confidential is a Big Fish Game?

I think I do have other Play First games that do that with the BF manager though. I have the game from Steam and never even saw it on Big Fish or disc.

But, yes, a lot of my casual disc games do show up in my Big Fish manager including Hound of the Baskervilles. Sometimes I find this annoying that my disc games have to open up the BF manager!

My understanding is that Emerald City was published by PlayFirst, who ended up removing all their games from Big Fish including the popular Diner Dash series among others. The list was quite long. I think this happened around 2012 (?) or thereabouts when PlayFirst stopped making games for the PC. I remember going through the list and thinking that I had a lot of these games and was glad that they were already in my Purchase History. This is also why the Dream Chronicles series was pulled.

I just feel if I bought the game on disc it shouldn't create or open a BF manager. I recently installed MCF Madame Fate on my XP which did not have Big Fish on it. The disc still had to create a manager on the desktop and opens when I shut the game down. Or I should say, it tries to open but there is no internet connection.