Hatoful Boyfriend creator: "btw I’ve got no royalty payment for Hatoful Boyfriend from Epic since they acquired Mediatonic back in spring 2021"

alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgmod to Gaming@beehaw.org – 145 points –
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I'm confused, what does the acquisition have to do with hatoful?

when they bought out Mediatonic they acquired the publishing rights, which is allegedly when he stopped getting royalty payments here. it also changed what platforms you can get the game on--previously it was available on a few other platforms--but these days you can only get the game on Epic or Steam

To be confirmed, but this sounds a bit like how Disney decided they didn't need to pay any more royalties to people who wrote Star Wars novelizations and original novels.

Like, "you don't have a contract with us, you had one with George Lucas before we bought Star Wars, it didn't transfer." Very shady, and probably a lot easier to pull when you're a huge corporation against a small creator.

By that logic, "You don't have a contract with me, therefore you can't own my intellectual property," should also apply, no?

Like, if your intellectual property was given away on the basis of an ongoing royalty payment, and Disney decides not to honour that contract, then they can't keep the IP.

Yeah, that's how I feel about that too, of course. But somehow, looks like Disney got to have the cake and eat it too.

I've been lead to believe that Disneys legal department is feared even among other giant corporations.

They've been doing shady business for a long time and don't fuck around, I guess.

From Wikipedia, Mediatonic created the international remake of it, which presumably included some kind of licensing fee from the original developer, which this tweet implies is at least partially based on number of sales. Seems like someone involved in contractual obligations at Epic dropped the ball on at least this game.

Seems like someone involved in contractual obligations at Epic dropped the ball on at least this game.

Implying this is accidental

I still default to Hanlon's Razor.

In large corporations, that Hanlon's Razor seems to have been given to a deranged monkey on speed. It's weaponized stupidity at this point.

I assume Moa Hoto owns the Hatoful Boyfriend license, and Mediatonic (who developed the HD version) must pay them a cut of each sale.

I did not realize mediatonic developed the remake.

Hato Moa is a woman to everyone saying he.