Indie dev cancels contract with publisher over "predatory" behaviour

The Indonesia-based developer of narrative indie game Coffee Talk, Mojiken, has cancelled its contract with its publisher PQube Games amid accusations of "predatory" behaviour.

Earlier today on August 24, the development studio posted the statement below to its official Twitter account. In the statement, Mojiken claims publisher PQube Games, who it signed to publish the console versions of the forthcoming A Space for the Unbound, left them feeling "manipulated and exploited."

This behaviour allegedly goes back to August 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Mojiken, PQube Games applied to obtain a "diversity fund from a well known console platform" without the studio's permission or knowledge, which was originally intended to help underrepresented developers.

Mojiken is now claiming it never received the grant from the publisher. Mojiken claims PQube Games "intentionally withheld information about the grant," and even "used it as leverage for their own commercial gain." The developer claims it was only privy to information about the grant as recently as March 2022.

As such, Mojiken has cancelled its contract with PQube Games to publish A Space for the Unbound to console platforms, effective immediately. Mojiken rounds out the statement by writing that it "cannot trust PQube Games nor continue to work together." 

However, although Mojiken has cancelled its contract with PQube Games, that doesn't mean they've retained publishing rights to A Space for the Unbound. In fact, the developer claims that the publisher is "refusing" to hand back console publishing rights for the game, and hence the developer has indefinitely delayed the launch of the forthcoming game.

PQube has since responded to the allegations from Mojiken earlier today on August 24. In a statement issued to GamesRadar+, it said "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," the statement continued. "Toge Productions have 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."

If you're curious about the Indonesian slice of life game, you can head over to A Space for the Unbound's Steam page to check out a prologue demo.