If you're at all interested in owning Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishment digitally on PlayStation 4, you might want to purchase a copy as soon as possible. The game is about to removed from the PlayStation Store because publisher Focus Home Interactive is refusing to revert the game's rights back to developer Frogwares after the conclusion of its contract.
In a statement on Twitter from the Ukrainian dev, Frogwares said that the publisher in question is refusing to transfer back the title IDs back to the creators and owners of the IP despite the fact that the Publishing and Distribution Agreement has now ended. This is apparently because of a new policy that Focus Home Interactive has put in place which stops this transfer from happening at the end of a contract agreement - but it's also one that didn't exist in past relationships nor in any the developer currently holds with the publisher.
It's a bad look for what is considered to be one of the largest growing publishers in the industry, and it means that Frogwares must now set up new store profiles for each of its games and work with the likes of PSN to rectify the situation. However, it doesn't even know if this is actually possible at the time of writing.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishment is set to leave the PlayStation Store on Sunday 29th September, while The Testament of Sherlock Holmes and Magrunner: Dark Pulse have already been removed from the store on PS3.
What do you make of this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 9
Well that's pretty crappy. Not a good look for Focus.
Going to be interested what happens when Games Workshop runs in to this. They're pretty fast and loose licensing stuff out - but not at all when it comes to reversion of rights and such.
The digital future, folks. At least it's available in disc form.
Yet people praise digital only. This will happen to most third party games in the future since Sony does not own them. You will not be able to download your digital games next gen or not all.
@Barryburton97 Yup LOL. People don't think about licenscing.
Jim Sterling literally said the other day that he respected Focus Home Interactive, so I'm looking forward to his inevitable video on this.
More on topic, mind: It's a good game, much better than the sequel, although I played it on PC so dunno if it runs well on PlayStation, these games usually do not.
Crimes and Punishments is one of the most under-appreciated games ever made. I hope this dispute is resolved asap.
What if you have the game bought but not download on psn? Do you need to download before it goes or what?
Sounds awful for them, I quite enjoyed crimes and punishment. I have the devil's daughter racked up to play when I have some time.
Also, on the one hand you'd want this game just in case it becomes unavailable forever but on the other you'd not want to give the publisher any of the money for trying to pull a move like this
@ralphdibny I don’t mean to put you off the devils daughter but please be aware it’s much more action focused than crime and punishment which I absolutely loved. There is a scene where a chase is happening in a forest and it took me 40 or so minutes of replaying before I got through (this just be me being terrible at games however) and that plus the truly awful ending to the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth. Some things are improved such as exploring the area around Holmes’s flat but I don’t think I’m ever going to replay it whereas I can see myself replaying Crime and Punishment every few years.
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