Update [Fri 2nd Sep, 2022 15:00 BST]: PQube responded to our request for comment with the following statement opposing Corecell’s account and outlining the side of the story:
“We enjoyed working with Corecell on our first project together and Corecell is delighted with the success of this project. We are excited to work with Corecell again on Aeternblade 2 and, despite the delays and quality issues, we managed to release the game in October 2019 to them at their request.
At our post-launch meeting in January 2020, Corecell acknowledged serious product quality issues and agreed to provide critical bug fixes to make the game commercially viable. Commerce. Unfortunately, these fixes never materialized and Corecell remained unresponsive. PQube remained willing to pay the full guarantee for the game, despite the very poor reviews and sales, and publish a PC version that matched PQube’s choice in the deal. Corecell agreed in March 2020 to provide a PC version of PQube but then proceeded to list and then self-release the PC version without further discussion with PQube.
Over the following 2 years, PQube proposed and submitted numerous proposals and support agreements to revert rights to Corecell upon their request, but these were not acknowledged by Corecell. However, despite all the challenges and lack of communication from Corecell, PQube released its rights to the console versions to Corecell before the end of the agreement period. We are still open to supporting Corecell in any way we can.
BILLIONDuring our 12 years of distribution and publishing history, we have worked with many partners and yes released more than 200 games. PQube has a proud history of working with developers both large and small. From established global intellectual property, to backing independent projects from smaller teams – we continue to publish many projects and sequels from our existing partnerships It is testament to the unwavering strength of our relationships and the strong relationship between our development partners and our passionate and diverse team at PQube.
Wi have always We strive to provide results-maximizing focus and commitment to our partners and fully support them throughout all stages of the product lifecycle. When challenges arise, as is inevitable in such a long period of time in the gaming industry, we always seek to solve them in a fair and reasonable manner..
We will continue to focus our energies on doing a great job for our partners. we continuously work to develop and improve all aspects of our business and is fully committed to providing the best possible service and success to all of our partners. “
Original story [Thu 1st Sep, 2022 16:05 BST]: The Corecell team released a statement today detailing the issues with publisher PQube, who is responsible for publishing Aeterno Blade II for developers in the West.
The group is accusing the publisher of not paying the minimum guarantee in full and – according to Corecell – of refusing to pay for the remaining milestones. These accusations according to Toge Productions and Mojiken Studios’ joint statement last week about issues related to the release Space for non-binding.
Here is the full statement from the Corecell Team:
Dear gamers,
It’s been difficult for us for the past three years. We’ve been struggling to recover since signing a publishing deal with PQube. But now it’s time to tell the truth. Hopefully this will help other indie game developers avoid what happened to us and keep fans informed of our situation.
PQUBE has published AeternoBlade II on Nintendo Switch, PS4, XBox One in Europe since October 2019 under a publishing agreement with us and agreed to pay us a minimum guarantee. However, PQUBE only pays a small portion of the minimum guarantee for the signing milestone at the time we ship the game to them, and they never pay for the remaining milestones. We attempted to resolve this issue with PQUBE but were unable to reach a resolution, which resulted in us terminating the publishing agreement around September 2020. However, PQUBE refused to return control. control publishing on console platforms for us and continue to sell and take all revenue from AeternoBlade II.
PQUBE offers to only hand over publishing control to us if we agree to keep the matter confidential, but we no longer wish to enter into any further dealings with PQUBE. We knew something was wrong, but as a small indie developer, we couldn’t afford the legal fees to fight a lawsuit in another country. We have reached out to each platform to request that our publishing control be returned. So far, only Nintendo and Sony have taken our games out of stores in Europe, and we have yet to receive any revenue from sales in Europe.
Because of this incident, we had to do various additional work to recover our financial position. We promise we’ll be back soon to fix the problem and keep releasing new content for AeternoBlade II. We are always grateful to everyone who has been supporting us. We want people to be happy with our game, happy with our product. We hope our fans understand our situation and hope you will continue to support us.
Thank you very much for your understanding,
Corecell group
Specifically referencing Toge Productions’ statement last week, Corecell reached out to the developers in solidarity:
Above TwitterCorecell has insisted that it “does not expect negative and harmful action against PQube” and that the company wants to get back to work on its games.
We’ve reached out to publisher PQube for feedback and will update this post as soon as we get a response from them.
