Protoculture Games has been negotiating with other parties regarding some of the content present in DEVIL ENGINE. Those parties are making public allegations about the state of the negotiations, as well as many other things. While our lawyer has advised us not to get into social media fights, we would like to make the following statements:

1) It is absolutely not true that the other parties have not gotten any money from sales of DEVIL ENGINE. They received a substantial payment from initial sales of DEVIL ENGINE. We have also only gotten one payment from sales of DEVIL ENGINE, since it was being sold by a third-party publisher. Since that initial payment, which was divided in a way that everyone involved agreed on, no funds were distributed from the third-party publisher, to either us or the other parties, for a lot of complex reasons.

2) Protoculture Games, LLC, the company that actually developed and sells DEVIL ENGINE, paid an experienced video game attorney to handle – quite successfully – the reversion of rights to DEVIL ENGINE out of its own funds. This is the only reason there is any money or any rights to argue about in the first place. As part of that mutual agreement with the third-party publisher, the rights have reverted and the royalty situation has been satisfactorily resolved. We kept the other parties informed of these negotiations and they agreed to wait until an agreement was reached before working on resolving the current situation. We appreciate their cooperation with that process.

3) The payments we are currently accused of not sharing are being held in escrow by our attorney: they were paid directly to him, at our request, and with notice to the other parties that we were going to do this. The money is being held in our lawyer’s trust account. We have directed him to pay what both sides have already agreed is a reasonable share to the other parties, unconditionally, upon their telling him where to send the money. The money is literally theirs for the asking. When we say unconditionally, we mean it. We will not even ask them to continue negotiating with us if they do not want to, let alone actually sign an agreement if they do not want to enter into one.

4) We will pay out all future royalties as we get them from the platforms DEVIL ENGINE is sold through in the same way. This offer is both to show our good faith, and because we feel it is the right thing to do. We will of course also provide reasonable sales reports so they know we are paying them what we have both agreed is a reasonable share.

5) Like many small gamedev startups, there was a lot of informality during the development of DEVIL ENGINE. Now, years and a very successful indie game later, there is confusion about rights, there are hurt feelings, and there are a lot of accusations from multiple people, about multiple people. Our lawyer says that we are allowed to say that this really, really sucks and we wish it was different. But it is what it is and we would like to negotiate a reasonable settlement with everyone involved. If they are determined not to negotiate, that is their choice.

6) That said, after consulting with our attorney, we have decided to continue to sell DEVIL ENGINE, with its original content. If anyone takes legal action against us, we will respond appropriately and according to our legal rights.

Thanks to all of the great fans who have made DEVIL ENGINE such a fantastic experience for us. Whatever happens, we know we made a great game that people loved. We hope to keep making it available for new fans for a long time to come.