Coffee Talk developers end relationship with PQube over ‘predatory’ behavior’
On Wednesday, Mojiken Studios and Toge Productions (the developer behind Coffee Talk) announced that they are delaying the release of their upcoming game A Space for the Unbound until further notice because they have terminated their relationship with PQube, the UK publisher that was set to release the console version of the game. PQube is a smaller publisher that has begun to take up space in the indie game scene, putting funds behind games like Arcade Spirits, and its sequel, Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers.
According to the studios’ statement, PQube treated them in a way that made them feel “manipulated and exploited,” which led to the decision to terminate their partnership.
“At the height of 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 known console platform,” the studios wrote. “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 leverage for their own commercial gain.”
Mojiken and Toge Productions stated that the publisher added the awarded grant money to a recoupable minimum guarantee within their publishing agreement, and then proceeded to use that as leverage to negotiate an even larger revenue share with the developers. Apparently, Toge and Mojiken didn’t find out about this until March of this year. The studios stated that as of now, PQube has not returned the publishing control of A Space for the Unbound on console back to them, which has led them to delay the game’s release indefinitely.
“We are absolutely heartbroken that a party we worked with would do this and a project we have worked on for 7 years has been taken advantage of in such a way,” the studios wrote. “Since the uncovering of this issue, we clearly cannot trust PQube Games nor continue to work together for the release of A Space for the Unbound as PQube Games has fallen considerably short not only of reasonable decency, but also of their obligations to us due to these predatory practices.”
PQube has since responded to a request for comment from Games Industry Dot Biz about the situation:
“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. This support has included offering significant further funding, over and above grant funding, to support development, porting and marketing.”
“Toge Productions has sought for some time to unilaterally enforce unreasonable revised terms to our agreement and it is disappointing that, as a result of not achieving that and despite PQube’s significant efforts to accommodate this, they have sought to deal with the matter in this way. We will respond through the appropriate channels.”
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