Seems the indie team at Soda Den are having some issues with their publisher Crytivo, and their fight has caused Roots of Pacha to be removed from Steam for now.
What is the game? "Be a part of a thriving Stone Age community. Join friends in this farming and life simulation game set in the early days of civilization. Discover “Ideas,” domesticate crops, befriend animals, and contribute to the growth of your village." — it's basically a Stone Age version of Stardew Valley and it was reviewing very well too.
Now though, they're going to be losing out on likely a fair few purchases, since the Steam page has been hidden due to the dispute between Soda Den and Crytivo.
Writing in a statement on Twitter and also on their Steam Forum they said:
As you may have noticed, the Roots of Pacha Steam page is temporarily offline.
We are sad to report that we have been engaged in a dispute with Crytivo over the rights to Roots of Pacha. We worked hard to amicably resolve our issue with Crytivo internally. Instead of working with us to address the issue, Crytivo went to Valve and authorized them to remove Roots of Pacha from Steam without our knowledge or consent.
While we work out our issues with Crytivo, we’ll continue developing Roots of Pacha with the same energy we’ve always put into it. We couldn’t be any more thankful for the overall reception of the game. We’re currently working on a roadmap and are excited to say it’ll be ready for you next month!
We’re cautiously optimistic that Roots of Pacha will return to Steam very soon.
On the face of it, this could look like a publisher acting poorly but things are never quite that simple. Especially since we don't know what's been said behind the scenes, and what their publishing contract actually contained. This led to Crytivo putting out their own statement where they explained that two days after release, Soda Den contacted them to "unilaterally rescind the contract we had worked under for three years, treating it as void".
Sounds real messy.
This seems like a good time to also mention Soda Den won't be doing Native Linux support, which was part of their Kickstarter campaign. Speaking to them on Twitter previously, they said:
Being a small indie team we've opted to do PC and Mac for now, and we've verified that the game runs well on Steam Deck using Proton, so we're hoping the Linux community can enjoy the game that way for the time being.
Update 15/05/23 - 19:23 UTC: after publishing this article, the developer announced a Native Linux build is in testing.
Checking it out on desktop Linux, it works out of the box with Proton 8. I was due to review it for Linux desktop and Steam Deck, since Crytivo approved a Steam key, but it seems like it's going to be best to wait a bit on that.
Even though it's removed on Steam, you can still buy it on Humble Store.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Liam DaweWell, they've now put up a Native Linux build for testing.
Yes, shortly after posting of the article, I notice non-empty Linux depot with a Linux binary and Unity engine .dll libraries which is common for Linux ports of Unity engine games. I edited my comments. Thanks for the update.
Some parts of the forum post:
QuoteWe’ve added a native Linux/Steam OS build as our tests have shown it’s more stable and has better performance than running the game with Proton.
QuoteWe’ve thoroughly tested internally on Steam Deck and with some players that it runs better, or at the very least equal, to Proton, but we’d like to hear your input. We don’t have the hardware or resources to test in the various Linux distros, but we assume that the native build will have better performance for you as well.
Quoting: rea987Quoting: Liam DaweWell, they've now put up a Native Linux build for testing.
Yes, shortly after posting of the article, I notice non-empty Linux depot with a Linux binary and Unity engine .dll libraries which is common for Linux ports of Unity engine games. I edited my comments. Thanks for the update.
Some parts of the forum post:
QuoteWe’ve added a native Linux/Steam OS build as our tests have shown it’s more stable and has better performance than running the game with Proton.
QuoteWe’ve thoroughly tested internally on Steam Deck and with some players that it runs better, or at the very least equal, to Proton, but we’d like to hear your input. We don’t have the hardware or resources to test in the various Linux distros, but we assume that the native build will have better performance for you as well.
I'm gonna need to save those quotes for future use for some people..
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