In an additional twist to the troubled Skullgirls saga, developer Mike Z has revealed via their Salty Cupcakes stream that former publisher Konami wants the game to be taken down from Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.
Skullgirls was originally conceived of as two separate independent fighting game projects by Mike Z, then still a competitive fighting game player, and illustrator Alex Ahad. The two joined the two projects into Skullgirls in 2008 and built up their engine in 2009. They rapidly cemented several deals to move development forward, 1st off with developer Reverge Labs, and then with publisher Autumn Games, and finally Konami joining in to confirm they would help with game distribution. The game was released in PSN on April 10, 2012, and then on XBLA a day after.
Skullgirls’ problems started not long after that, as Autumn Games was suddenly faced litigation stemming from another game. Autumn and Reverge did not renew their contract in June of that year, rendering the entire Skullgirls team jobless. Autumn reaffirmed their ownership of the IP, and placed support behind the Skullgirls team as they reassembled under a new name, Lab Zero Games.
Autumn’s litigation and funding troubles continued in the following months, so Lab Zero decided to setup an Indiegogo on February 2013 to fund continued development of Skullgirls. Following a good showing at EVO that year, they were able to raise $ 830,000, from the $ 150,000 stretch goal. On August 2013, they were able to publish the game to Steam under Marvelous AQL.
However, Konami was still tied up with Skullgirls, and their relationship throughout this ordeal had been frosty at best. A month ago, Mike Z went on their Indiegogo to explain that they were severing ties with Konami so that there would be no more roadblocks to them releasing patches for the PSN and XBL versions.
And now we come to today, where Konami has asked that the game be removed on PSN December 17, and XBL by the end of the same month. The devs have requested delays for the deadline, citing they were not informed on time, but have yet to hear back from Konami.
Lab Zero’s plans for now are to keep developing a new build of Skullgirls, so that they would be able to rerelease it on both digital platforms in the near future under new publishers. In between, the game may be delisted from both completely.
There is still a lot we don’t know for sure about this situation. For example, we don’t know if Konami will block Autumn and Lab Zero from bringing the game back, or in the best case scenario, if they change their mind and renegotiate to resume publishing duties for the game. We’re not even fully aware of the nature of Lab Zero’s and Autumn’s relationship with the company.
However, we do know Konami itself has faced severe criticism for many decisions in recent years, and rightfully so. Shutting down studios, poor marketing decisions, and even closer to home, questionable practices attempting to silence critics with and blacklisting and video takedowns. They do not need to be looking like the bad guys in this situation, where the devs just want to get the game out to the fans. I’m not sure they understand what they’re getting themselves into here, though.
