Another developer claims theft by UK publisher

Corecell claims that PQube has withheld money from the studio. This is the second set of claims against PQube in only a few weeks.

Corecell, a Thai indie developer known for its work on AternoBlade II, has announced that PQube, a developer previously accused of withholding grant money from a different indie studio, has allegedly withheld money from the studio.

Some context: PQube is an indie publishing company. Small game development studios will often sign contracts with publishing companies to get some help with marketing and fundraising. Corecell stated that under the terms of the original agreement signed in 2019, PQube would pay a minimum guarantee to the company as a result of agreeing to publish the game for various consoles.

Corecell states that PQube only paid a small portion of that minimum guarantee, and never paid the remainder. As a result of this issue, Corecell terminated the agreement with PQube in September 2020. PQube, however, has allegedly refused to return publishing control to the developers, continuing to rake in revenue for game sales.

We have important news to share with you.#indiedevmatter#aeternobladeii#gamedev#indiedev#indiegame@xboxuk@[e-mail]/AXwphGQYnL

— CORECELL OFFICIAL (@AETERNOBLADE1) September 1, 2022

Allegedly, PQube “offered to hand over publishing control” if Corecell kept the entire incident quiet. Corecell states that they “knew something was not right”, but could not afford the legal fees to take PQube to court in the UK. To protect their work, Corecell stated that they reached out to the various platforms to regain publishing control, and as of the date of this article, only Nintendo and Sony agreed to pull the game offline.

The AternoBlade II developers state that while they want to continue the upkeep of the game, due to the alleged income theft, the developers have focused on “additional works” to recover. Corecell continues, stating that “we promise that we will soon be back to patch the problems and continue to release new contents for AeternoBlade II.”

PQube previously came under fire for allegedly hiding money from an Indonesian studio. The publisher received a grant from a “diversity fund”, but allegedly did not pay it out towards the studio. PQube responded, stating that “We have honoured all obligations of our publishing agreement and have supported Toge Productions at every stage of product development throughout their delays and difficulties.”

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.