Second Developer in a Week Calls out Publisher PQube

ign.com:

AeternoBlade II developer Corecell has called out publisher PQube for not paying out the entire minimum guarantee in the game’s publishing agreement. It's the second developer to draw attention to the publisher in a week.

“PQube has published AeternoBlade II on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in Europe since October 2019 under a publishing agreement with us and agreed to pay a minimum guarantee to us, “ Corecell says in a statement on Twitter (below). “However, PQube only paid a small part of the minimum guarantee of the signing milestone by the time we sent them the game and they never paid the remaining milestones.”

Corecell claims that it tried to resolve the situation with PQube amicably, but both parties could not reach a solution. The developer seemingly decided to terminate the publishing deal back in September 2020. However, Corecell also claims that PQube refuses to relinquish publishing rights back for the AeternoBlade II on console, and continues to sell it on multiple platforms, thus recouping all of the revenue from the game in Europe.

We have important news to share with you.#indiedevmatter #aeternobladeii #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame @xboxuk @PlayStationEU @NintendoEurope pic.twitter.com/AXwphGQYnL

Corecell claims that PQube offered to give console publishing rights back, but only if the developer kept this situation privately under wraps. “We knew something was not right, but as a small independent developer, we could not afford to pay legal fees to fight the case in another country,” says Corecell.

The developer says it has also contacted Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft about taking AeternoBlade II off of digital stores in Europe, with only Nintendo and Sony complying.

Corecell says it still wants to work on