A Space For The Unbound Delayed Indefinitely as Developers and Publisher Fight Over Funding

ign.com:

Upcoming slice-of-life game A Space for the Unbound has been delayed indefinitely as its developers Toge Productions and Mojiken Studio have terminated their agreement with publisher PQube following a funding dispute.

The Indonesian-based developers released a statement on August 24 claiming they had been exploited and manipulated by PQube, who allegedly withheld a third-party diversity grant awarded to the studios and used it as leverage to increase its revenue share.

PQube has denied these allegations, however, telling IGN that it has fully honoured its publishing agreement and that Toge Productions has tried to enforce unreasonable revised terms.

The statement from Toge Productions and Mojiken Studio reads: "Earlier this year we discovered that PQube Games, a UK-based publisher that we signed for the console publishing of A Space For The Unbound for western regions had done certain things which have left us feeling manipulated and exploited, and so we have had to terminate our agreement with them.

"At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020, PQube Games used our position and heritage as developers from Indonesia to obtain a diversity fund from a well know console platform. The diversity fund was a grant fund intended to help underrepresented game developers, especially during the pandemic.

"However, instead of giving those funds to the developers as the grant was intended, PQube Games intentionally withheld information about the grant and used it as a leverage for their own commercial gain. Rather than paying the grant money to us, PQube Games hid the facts about the grant's award and added it as a recoupable minimum guarantee and then used it to negotiate the increase of their revenue share."

The studios said