PQube have responded to the allegations made by AeternoBlade devs Corecell

Here’s Corecell’s original statement in full:

Dear gamers,

It has been tough for us for the past three years. We have struggled to recover since we signed a publishing deal with PQube. But now it’s time we came out with the truth. Hopefully, this will help other indie game developers to avoid what has happened to us and inform our fans about our situation.

PQUBE offered to hand over publishing control to us only if we agreed to keep this matter secret, but we no longer wanted to be involved in any more deals with PQUBE. 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. We have contacted each platform to ask for the return of our publishing control. So far, only Nintendo and Sony have taken our game off their Europe stores, and we still have not received any revenue from the sales in Europe.

Because of this incident, we had to do various additional works to recover from our financial situation. We promise that we will soon be back to patch the problems and continue to release new contents for AeternoBlade II. We are always thankful for everyone who has been supporting us. We want everyone to have fun with our game, satisfied with our product. We hope our fans understand our situation and hope you will continue to support us.

Thank you so much for understanding,

Corecell Team

Corecell’s allegations follow on froman earlier claimby Indonesian devs Mojiken Studio. Mojiken published a statement in August that accused PQube of withholding information about a diversity grant for slice-of-life adventureA Space For The Unbound, and that PQube used that to leverage for a greater share of the game’s revenue. Corecell’s statement was retweeted by Mojiken.

A secondstatementfrom Corecell qualified that they don’t want “negative and harmful action” aimed at PQube, just “”to explain our situation to our fans, get our game back, and move on”. PQube responded to Corecell’s claims in a statement toVG247:

Over the following 2 years, PQube proposed and sent numerous proposals and supporting agreements to revert rights to Corecell in line with their request but these were not acknowledged by Corecell. Nevertheless, despite all of the challenges and the lack of communication from Corecell, PQube released its rights to the console versions back to Corecell well before the end of the agreement term. We remain open to support Corecell in any way possible.

Throughout our 12 years of distribution and publishing history, we have worked with numerous partners and have released over 200 games. PQube have a proud history of working with developers both large and small. From established global IP, to championing independent projects from smaller teams - we continue to publish multiple projects and sequels from our existing partnerships which is testament to the ongoing strength of our relationships and the strong bond between our development partners and our passionate and diverse team at PQube.

We have always strived to provide focus and commitment to maximise the results for our partners and to support them fully through all stages of the product lifecycle. When challenges have arisen, as is inevitable over such a long period in the games industry, we have always sought to resolve them in a fair and reasonable way.

We will continue to focus our energy on doing a great job for our partners. We continually work to develop and improve all aspects of our business and are fully committed to providing the best possible service and success for all of our partners.

AeternoBlade 2 is published by Corecell onSteam, so any money from that goes directly to the studio rather than PQube. Corecell are still hoping to gain the console rights to the game.