Raven's Cry - Removed From Steam…Again

It is true, there is an official court announcement from February 1st. A meeting of creditors is going to take place on April 13th.

On a sidenote: On January 27th, 5 days before the insolvency filing, they renamed Topware Interactive back to Zuxxez Entertainment. If I had to guess, I'd say they prepared for another trademark sale.

Originally Posted by joxer
Won't quote just list a few things.

I am a troll. Not an usual one though, but I think I am. If it matters.

Rune defneds me? If WW3 didn't start, soon will.

Someone (deliberately?) skipped details on me vs Skyrim respawns, generally. It's the dragon above Mages' Guild that got on my nerves, not other respawns. But even that thing isn't such a problem thanks to norespawn mod made by the people like me who despise godlike trashmobs designs.
My actual problem with Skyrim is it's crapload of bugs never fixed by it's developer. That can look inconsistent, but it's not really, I'm allergic to bug-o-ramas. There will always be something bugged in a game, especially openworld RPGs, but Skyrim's amount of bugs made me to completely forget about Ultima Ascension release. In fact I can't remember any other game in past ten years that had so many bugs inside.

Hope this sets it, now please return to Raven's Cry before it goes even more offtopic.

Thank you. If every conversation could be conducted in this manner, there wouldn't be any feud or "war" in cyberspace =D

I'm more than happy to "agree to disagree". Still I think it's a bit far-fetched to have any game be more disastrous than the Ultima 9 release, but it could have been blind-lucky with me in terms of encountering bugs in Skyrim, as your encounter of bugs in Raven's Cry. 8-)

Originally Posted by Avantenor
The old Topware was a big player in the unpleasant and shady business practice sector. It includes terms like price dumping, copyright violation, shell company, tax fraud, pretrial imprisonment and probation. But to be fair, from a customer perspective, there also was benefit in their actions, mostly monetary. From what I know, they never tried to deceive their customers and have always been client-friendly towards their paying customers. For example, they always included fan feedback and every customer who bought Raven's Cry got a free upgrade to Vendetta. On the downside, they never tried to be everybody's darling and, as a result, could behave like trolls. Especially, I think, when they felt to be treated unfair. And I guess, they felt treated unfair when it came to reviews about Raven's Cry.

As we are speaking, it seems the parent holding company of Topware yesterday filed for insolvency. That's unfortunate, since I hoped to buy Vendetta at some point for a lower price.

I'm aware of the gesture to give free copies to the original owner. At least they didn't charge twice like those Japanese publishers of DX:HR, Dark Souls 2 and Sleeping Dogs.

I think you can still purchase products they published even after they went bankrupt. Could be that as long as the publisher account exists on Steam, the products are listed. Like after Interplay bankrupted a second time, you could still buy Fallout and FO2 listed under Interplay, until Bethesda intervened that is. Although, the accountants of the doomed company may have hell of a work to do regarding taxation of that income, I guess.

Originally Posted by Avantenor
It is true, there is an official court announcement from February 1st. A meeting of creditors is going to take place on April 13th.

On a sidenote: On January 27th, 5 days before the insolvency filing, they renamed Topware Interactive back to Zuxxez Entertainment. If I had to guess, I'd say they prepared for another trademark sale.

I've heard of similar ploys employed by other companies, such as this Japanese developer called SNK. They were eventually somewhat successful in this endeavor and even resurrected the company after a few years.

Originally Posted by joxer
This doesn't explain Vendetta removal from Steam as older games like Two Worlds 2 are still available in Steam store.

I think the existing listing of Two Worlds 2 and other remaining games indicates that the publisher account of TopWare is still active, which could only indicate that the removal of Vendetta is due to wrongdoing and violation of Steam terms. Pullings by Steam's decision are usually unexplained via official channels as I believe Valve is uninterested in putting on the appearance of being scandalized, as opposed to the cases where publishers voluntarily remove a product from their catalog such as the case of Arkham Knight, in which WB was pretty vocal about the decision on their side.

According to GameBanshee, "there is a variety of imagery to support this theory" of the presumed fake reviews, such as https://imgur.com/a/hNC1C, so looks like the allegations are true after all.

Raven's Cry EE has returned to Steam Store.
Dunno how, why, what… There are no details nor official words why was it removed in the first place, only speculations.

The difference is that now, beside Topware that filed for bankrupcy earlier this year, another publisher is listed: ACE.
I know absolutely nothing about AC Enterprises eK. It's possible Topware found a buyer for some IP, but sadly, there is no info anywhere about anything.

According to the commercial registry ACE is owned by to Alexandra Constandache, a (former?) CEO of Topware/ZUXXEZ.

You can't kill Raven's Cry…It's like a Terminator, just keeps coming back.