‘The Sinking City’ Developer Uses DMCA to Remove Its Own Game From Steam

The Sinking City was removed from Steam and other storefronts last year, the result of an ongoing legal conflict between developer Frogwares and publisher Nacon. Tensions between the companies have wildly escalated recently, with The Sinking City re-appearing on Steam without Frogwares' approval. Yesterday, the developer accused Nacon of hacking its game code and uploading an illegal version of the game to Steam. 

At the time of the accusation, The Sinking City was still on Steam. But that changed this afternoon, when the game was no longer available. You could search for The Sinking City on Steam, but when clicking on the game, it would send you back to the main storefront. 

The game was removed as the result of a DMCA takedown notice from Frogwares, according to Steam.

"The Sinking City has been in dispute in French courts for a while," said Valve VP of marketing Doug Lombardi in a statement to VICE Games. "An interim decision last fall appeared to give Nacon the right to distribute the game on Steam while the litigation proceeded. However, today we received a DMCA take-down notice for the version that Nacon recently shipped, so we have responded to that notice."

Valve owns and runs Steam.

Nacon and Frogwares did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When the game popped back up on Steam, the "news" section for The Sinking City included a tweet from Frogwares advising fans to not purchase that version of the game.

The Sinking City remains available for purchase on PC through other storefronts.

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