Indie devs drop publisher over “predatory practices” with funding for ‘A Space for the Unbound’
Toge ProductionsIndie studios Mojiken and Toge Productions, the teams behind A Space for the Unbound, have parted ways with one of its publishers after discovering they had lied about and withheld grant funding from them.
A Space for the Unbound is a much-anticipated indie title that was set to release later this year, taking players to rural Indonesia in a heartwarming tale about overcoming anxiety and depression.
The game had generated a fair amount of buzz thanks to its stunning pixel art style, emotional soundtrack, and the developer’s previous work on titles like Coffee Talk.
However, the game has been delayed until further notice after publisher PQube Games “intentionally withheld information” about a grant intended to help underrepresented devs.
A Space for the Unbound delayed due to “predatory practices” from publisher
On August 24, Mojiken and Toge Productions released a joint statement announcing the delay of A Space for the Unbound and explaining the situation with PQube Games that led to the shift in release date.
The UK-based publisher was supposed to be handling the console release of the indie game in western regions, but they have dropped after leaving the Indonesian devs “feeling manipulated and exploited” over a grant awarded during the global health crisis in August 2020.
The statement said: “PQube Games used our position and heritage as developers from Indonesia to obtain a diversity fund from a well-known console platform. 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 a leverage for their own commercial gain.”
They also went on to explain that the publisher used the money to negotiate a higher revenue share, but this only came to light in March of this year.
“We are absolutely heartbroken that a party we worked with would do this and a project we have worked on for seven years has been taken advantage of in such a way,” the dev’s statement continued.
“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.”
For the time being, PCube Games is refusing to give control of the game’s console release back to the devs, meaning there is currently no new release date for A Space of the Unbound.
Hopefully, the situation resolves itself quickly and Mojiken and Toge Productions find a way to get the game into players’ hands as soon as possible.