The developer behind the indie roleplaying game The Outbound Ghost, Conradical, has been asking players not to purchase the game on account of console performance issues, threatening legal action against publisher Digerati. The Outbound Ghost was released earlier this year to mostly positive reviews following a successful funding campaign on Kickstarter."Digerati has released over 50 different titles on console and launches with situations such as this are the exception,” Digerati posted about the matter on Twitter. “We remain firmly committed to making further improvements to The Outbound Ghost as quickly as we can."Lead Developer at Conradical Conrad Grindheim previously accused the publisher of releasing an unapproved build of The Outbound Ghost. "The Outbound Ghost released on PlayStation 4 and 5 yesterday and on Nintendo Switch today. I have already received worrying messages concerning its performance," Grindheim said in a recently released statement. "I never wanted this version of the game to come out, but due to circumstances out of my control, this is the one that was released. I am doing everything that I can to get the relevant parties to fix their mistakes and I will keep you all up to date as much as I possibly can."Grindheim went on to produce a video threatening legal action against the punisher if control over the game was not returned. "The past few weeks have been incredibly stressful due to many factors, but the main reason is that my relationship with the game's publisher has been dissolved," the Grindheim said. "But they refuse to hand back control of the relevant pages and are profiting from the situation. We are studying the appropriate legal actions to resolve this situation and protect the game."The console issues outlined recently in my socials are just the beginning," Grindheim addded. "A lot more will come out regarding the breaches soon. For now, I suggest you don't buy any publicly available version of The Outbound Ghost because it is not up to the quality standards of the games that I create and that you expect of me."Grindheim later defaced the Steam page, switching the name to This Game is No Longer Authorized by the Developer and removing all of the previously posted screenshots and trailers. The product description and system requirements were also taken down."We have remained largely silent over the last few days as we've been blindsided by the sudden negativity from Conrad, the game's developer," the owner of Digerati, Sarah Alfieri, said on Twitter. "Until literally hours before the console launch, we had enjoyed a cooperative and mutually pleasant working relationship with Conrad and we saw no indication of any dissatisfaction on his part." Alfieri added that “in addition, Conrad has unlawfully tampered with the Steam page and has attempted to take down the console versions as well.”"Our goal is to support The Outbound Ghost and has always been to support our developers. We are actively trying to make improvements and release patches and have been met with repeated attempts to sabotage our efforts and sully our name,” Alfieri added.
Digerati has now preemptively filed a lawsuit against Conradical, claiming breach of contract in addition to a variety of other accusations. "While it is absolutely not something we wanted to do, we have been forced into a position that requires us to protect our rights under the licensing agreement with Conradical," Digerati recently told the publication PC Gamer. "We remain hopeful that we will still be able to resolve this issue amicably and will be able to cooperate on the continued improvement of the performance of The Outbound Ghost. However, we simply cannot sit by and be dragged through the mud in a public forum, nor can we allow our contractual rights to be trampled without exerting some form of remedy."
"Digerati is ready, willing, and able to work with Conradical to ensure the success of The Outbound Ghost and Conradical as a continuing partner,” the publisher noted. “We hope that the need for legal interventions is short lived and this matter can be settled immediately."