The developer and distributor of Axiom Verge say that his publisher owes them more than $ 250,000



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Axiom Verge, the famous Metroidvania developer Tom Happ, will be released this year on the Wii U. This is the good news. The bad news is that the game's distributor, Limited Run Games, and its sales manager, Dan Adelman, said his publisher, BadLand Games, still owed them about a quarter of a million dollars.

In announcing the physical version of the Wii U game, which will go on sale later this month, Limited Run said that BadLand owed him $ 78,000 for hard copies of the game that he had never delivered. After that, Adelman said that BadLand had not paid Tom Happ an amount that he believed amounted to about $ 200,000, including money to be donated to a special fund to finance the medical treatments of the young child of Happ.

"Badland literally stole money from a handicapped toddler," Adelman said in a series of tweets earlier today. According to Adelman, a number of companies interested in trying to produce a physical version of Axiom Verge for various platforms. They finally decided to join BadLand because of the unique terms of the proposed contract.

"Accepting a payment plan would invalidate our lawsuit and give BadLand a chance not to pay"

"In addition to matching what other publishers were proposing in terms of income share, they stated that they would contribute 75% of their reduction to a trust fund created for current medical expenses of Alastair Happ" Adelman wrote on Twitter. Alastair Happ suffers from a rare neurological disorder called Kernicterus, most of whose treatments are experimental and not covered by insurance. Years later, after the adoption of hardware versions of the game on PlayStation 4, PS Vita and Switch, Adelman says that money is still missing.

Neither Adelman, Happ nor Badland were immediately available to respond to a request for comment.

According to Adelman's tweets, BadLand, based in Spain, was originally scheduled to publish material versions of the game in Europe and North America. The company came back later and asked Happ to provide him with the money to make copies for North America, which, according to Adelman, was a signal that something was wrong. not ok. "At that time, we still thought that BadLand was operating in good faith. They had very little money, "he said. "We still had the intention of dividing the product to the original conditions."

Happ and Adelman organized the distribution of physical copies in North America, with retailers paying directly to Happ. But Adelman said that Happ had never been paid his share for the versions sold in Europe. Meanwhile, a Wii U version to be produced by BadLand never materialized.

As stated in a detailed report released by GamesIndustry.biz, Limited Run Games specialty distributor has ordered 6,000 copies of the Wii U edition of Axiom Verge, which included a soundtrack, an artbook and other extras, for which she paid $ 78,000 to BadLand in early 2017. She planned to sell them through her website this fall, but the copies were not available. have never been found. In early 2018, Limited Run Games filed a lawsuit for a refund. He won the case, but still has not received payment. Despite the temporary closure of BadLand in 2018 due to financial problems, Josh Fairhurst, CEO of Limited Run, told GamesIndustry.biz that he thought the company had the money to pay.

"BadLand Publishing has released several physical retail products since we sent them our money, some in the last few months," Fairhurst told GamesIndustry.biz. "With my knowledge of the minimum ordering requirements for major platforms and the associated costs, I know that BadLand has spent more than $ 100,000 (or more) on the release of recent physical products. So they had more than enough money to pay us back, but they just kept our money. "

According to Luis Quintans, CEO of BadLand, he will eventually be reimbursed, but needs time. "In short, this [judgment] says we have to pay to Limited Run, which we are ready to do from the beginning, "Quintans told GamesIndustry.biz. "But for this limited race must want to talk to us and keep in mind that it's not possible to deal with all payments at once."

Fairhurst says on Twitter that now that Limited Run has sued BadLand and won, he can not conclude such an agreement. "Accepting a payment plan would invalidate our lawsuit and give BadLand a chance not to pay," he wrote.

Limited Run will publish the Multiverse Edition of Axiom Verge March 29 for the Wii U after a direct partnership with Happ and Adelman. According to Adelman, they are also suing Badland for the $ 200,000 the publisher owes them, but "the international nature of the trial" makes it "difficult to advance".

"It's frustrating to see @BadLand_Publish tweeting about the new games they're launching, probably funded with the money they owe LRG and Tom Happ," Adelman wrote.

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