Discussion Project Blue (NES Homebrew) Developer Ghosted by First Press Games, issues warning

[SeafoamGaming]

a bit busy so sorry if my formatting here is odd:

But basically years ago a NES homebrew called Project Blue was put on Kickstarter for a Famicom cart. This was done by First Press Games, who did a few other limprints like Hole New World and Tobu Tobu Girl in the past.

As of 2019 though, FPG pretty much stalled on producing any product and is more notorious for blocking customers on social media, refusing refund requests (despite being a German corporation), and endlessly delaying their entire release slate every quarter without so much as a word. Psychotic Adventures Origins was given an ETA for 2020 after being listed for preorder in 2019, and that still hasn’t even gone to manufacturing as of December 2023.

So recently the project blue dev had enough of FPG ghosting him and made a public call out tweet, indicating they havent paid him money. Shortly after, they did pay despite months of attempts to get them to do so earlier going unanswered.



“
@FirstPressGames ran a Kickstarter for the Famicom edition of Project Blue over 3 years ago now. 3 years later, they have not produced the items they promised and they still owe us money. Absolute scumbag company, that takes advantage of collectors and developers alike.
— toggleswitch (@toggleswitch2)”

Later he held a reddit AMA on a Lim Print collector sub, where he further clarified they’ve given him almost no communication and it’s been 3 years. And they helped set up a kickstarter for his FC version, thus leaving those backers burned.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LimitedPrintGames/s/y7BQLYCdsl

So yeah. Limprint is still a shaky business and these pubs are bad news. Beware.

 

[sagadego20]

seems like these limited print things are just a scam anymore, huh

 

[Catsylvania]

Yikes. I have no patience for theft really but specifically this kind of IOU-with-no-intention-of-paying/ghosting of indie developers and gig industry workers who depend on that payment to [checks notes] live.

Semi-related, I was really close to buying Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe from First Print Games. Glad I didn’t support that company. The developer, Tangram Games, offers the game free to download on itch.io for anyone interested.

 

[SeafoamGaming]

Holy shit, the dev just dropped a big reply on the AMA that pretty much goes in-depth on how fucked up First Press are:

I apologize for the length of this post, but I just want you to have a full idea of what working with these guys is like.

They have not shipped the bulk of the value that they received from Kickstarter in 2020. Like, almost all of the money is in the special editions
Contractually, they had a certain amount of time to produce those editions, which had expired by summer of 2022. At that time, at the latest, editions were supposed to be made and we were supposed to be paid, in full.

Around that time I sent them an email outlining several concerns that I had, including unshipped copies of special editions, unpaid regular edition royalties, (which they began ignoring pretty much immediately after release and which I have only ever received after spending hours and hours writing emails trying to get paid) and many other things.

They are obligated to provide us with sales reports (which they have to this day never done) and pay us automatically, on a regular basis. I have, 3 years later, never once received a payment from them without having to spend hours of my life getting it.

Shortly thereafter I replied to the message asking again for a reply and was once again ignored. I sent another which was also ignored. How would you feel if you had a contract with somebody and they chose not to honor it, then you contacted them multiple times asking for resolution, and they just... never responded?

And they continued ignoring me and putting me off for the entire month of August, into September. For example, the first message I sent was on the first of August. They ignored it that week, went on "vacation" for the next, said on the 15th they'd 'get back to you' but did not. Finally on the 29th I sent a rather angry message.

At this time they placated me by replying to one of my demands and sending the promo copies they owed me, which was probably their cheapest option.
All throughout September they continued filibustering and not replying the more important financial requests. I have received excuses as lame as "we don't have internet access when we're not at the office" which is just absurd.

On Sept 2, I was told they would work out the remaining issues, it would take "no longer than a few weeks". On September 20th I asked for an update. No reply. Sept 26th I again ask for an update. Again, no reply.

On October 3rd I sent an email where I showed some pretty clear frustration and was told "we will get back to you in a few days"
On October 7th and 8th I again asked for updates that were ignored. At this point, "a few weeks" had become 5 weeks. On October 10th I again showed some real frustration and was told that "we told you to wait" when in fact that had promised me a reply "in a few days". If it seems as though am I'm being impatient, remember it's been over two months of "just a few days" at this point.

Finally in mid October I get the regular edition royalties they have not been paying for the last 6 months. So it took me from August until October to get the money that they were supposed to give me automatically. And they had managed to still not deal with the larger issues of dealing with special editions and the royalties on that. And this shit went on and on for the whole month of October and into November when I finally cornered them on special edition money that we should have received IN FULL months earlier.
And at that point I finally was able to work out a payment plan for something that 1) we should have gotten all of, and 2) we should have gotten without having to spend 3 months of my life arguing over.

That's just a sample. The whole last year has continued more or less in this fashion. To this very day, some of the issues I outlined on August 1st, 2022 have not been responded to nor dealt with. So I apologize for the headline, but I feel like it is really an understatement of how miserable it is to work with FPG.
I wonder if you would prefer "First Press Games forced me to give them an interest-free loan?"

As an addendum I just want to say, I make music as well as games. And so I work with a total of like 6-7 publishers. And every single one, except FPG, I have a friendly relationship with, that mostly consists of them sending me money without me having to cajole them, and us having friendly banter about things that we mutually appreciate.

TLDR: the same ghosting shit they pull on customers is done to devs, to equally laughable degrees.

 

[ezr__]

This is a wild story to read about FPG. I knew they kept lying to their customers about product updates but this situation is also terrible. The developer to have the patience to deal with their bs for so long would drive me crazy. I am glad they got their money after complaining on Twitter and Reddit.

 

[SeafoamGaming]

This is a wild story to read about FPG. I knew they kept lying to their customers about product updates but this situation is also terrible. The developer to have the patience to deal with their bs for so long would drive me crazy. I am glad they got their money after complaining on Twitter and Reddit.

the annoying part is they're the third indie to have had to do this in 2023. POWA had to do a similar thread to get them to reply to an inquiry, and Mindseize's dev just got a reply last week indicating they just now started production of the standard editions of that game, publishing that update on their kickstarter (while also apologizing profusely to backers who are rightfully annoyed the physical edition is just endlessly delayed, as the dev has no idea why either)

 

[SeafoamGaming]

Bumping with a notice: seems the dev deleted the reddit thread and tweets related to FPG.

I’m suspecting FPG is pulling legal shenanigans. Good thing i quoted a lot of stuff here.

 

[snesiscool]

Uh oh, the Goodboy Galaxy GBA physicals are handled by them too. There hasn't been an update on them since late last year.

 

[SeafoamGaming]

I am bumping this to inform you there is no new update and the carts did not make Q1 like FPG promised the devs

there is nothing new

except that they quietly bumped the release date by another quarter on their website, refuse to comment on it (all their social media block comments, and any pages they forgot to like on their reddit ads, they delete the replies), continue to dodge refund requests from customers who ask, (despite being stationed in germany, and by EU law, they must provide a refund) and to my knowledge the project blue guy was never fully able to get anything resolved besides a payment they hastily did upon that reddit thread gaining traction. Which based on how it's now deleted, they probably pressured him to close down.

Do not buy from these guys. I don't even care if you like chained echoes so much, don't bother. These unstable fomo limprint companies ain't worth lighting your money on, especially when as of now, we have the Psychotic Adventures Origin, POWA, Mindseize, and Project Blue devs all on the record as not being paid for their work or given any meaningful status updates.