Update: Feral got in touch, all is fine. As I suggested it was, it's due to a late filling of accounts. Phoronix has now removed their article and Feral has given permission to quote them on this:
Hello Liam,
Thank you for your email.
Sorry to give a mundane explanation, but this is a non-story. It is simply due to late filing of our accounts, not great, but not terribly unusual.
It’s a shame Michael Larabel didn't contact us before publishing this piece, we would have been happy to set him straight.
Feral is in good health and we look forward to continuing to bring great games to our favourite platforms for many years to come.
Regards,
Timur
Original article:
Feral Interactive, the porting company that has made many games available on Linux (as well as macOS and mobile) may be in a spot of trouble.
Reported first on Phoronix, as found out from the UK's Companies House, they're being given a "First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off" which is not exactly a good sign for any company. What this means, is that they have a few months before they might cease to legally exist. There can be a few reasons for this, like not sending in their accounts or an annual confirmation statement. Looking at Feral, it seems theirs are overdue as they should have been done by 31 December 2019.
This would be really bad for Linux gaming as a whole considering just how many ports they've given us including: Mad Max, Shadow of Mordor, XCOM, XCOM 2, Life is Strange 1 & 2 + Before the Storm, HITMAN, Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, numerous Total War titles and they were supposed to also be bringing Total War Saga: TROY to Linux this year too.
However—given how they've only somewhat recently expanded into Nintendo Switch and mobile porting with multiple titles (and they're pretty lucrative platforms), and they only just released Company of Heroes on iPad, something about this seems a little odd. Hopefully it's a case of some missing paperwork that's being prepared late with this notice perhaps being automatic.
We've reached out to Feral Interactive, to see if they can provide a statement.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Anyway, on the bright side we do know now that Feral is shiny and kicking. Reading the responses to the articles they even got a few extra sales out of it ;)
Last edited by jens on 26 February 2020 at 6:58 pm UTC
[email protected] Feb 26, 2020
Reliefed to know they are fine. Waiting for Grid asap.
BrazilianGamer Feb 26, 2020
I really think Phoronix should stay at summarizing commit messages. The Feral article has a bitter taste on in considering they gave Feral apparently very little time to respond in private first.
Anyway, on the bright side we do know now that Feral is shiny and kicking. Reading the responses to the articles they even got a few extra sales out of it ;)
Thing is, emailing them in the morning to him is gone home time in the UK depending on were he is in the US :D
slaapliedje Feb 26, 2020
:OFunny thing, I recently bought Campaign Cartographer 3 plus. It runs terribly on Windows 10, runs much faster under Wine 5.0 (as packaged in Debian Unstable.)
I do really really hope we don't lose Feral. Maybe buying more stuff from them would help, even though we're a tiny demographic.
Just bought the new Tomb Raider and LiS 2 full price from their store. :)
Feral leaving would be the day I'm installing Windows 10. Because there's no better suited system to start Exe files.
Then again, it also hasn't been updated to 64bit either.
wb ... promised Arkham then pulled the plug on feral.
Do we know for sure who pulled the plug? It happened when it was getting review bombed and everyone was using the (brand new!) Steam refunding system. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Feral backed out at that point. Either way, it's disappointing, as it seems the reviews turned quite positive after the initial hatred.
You would think Feral can now get many games that are ported to Stadia and release them on desktop fairly quickly. I wonder what's stopping them from doing that.
The original game publisher is what is stopping them from doing that. Either by outright refusing to let Feral buy the Linux/macOS rights or by having such a high price that it's not worth it.
I'm actually disappointed that they aren't in trouble. If they were in a situation, maybe they would sell their games somewhere other than Steam.
What a ridiculous thing to say!
leillo1975 Feb 27, 2020
BrazilianGamer Feb 27, 2020
I'm actually disappointed that they aren't in trouble. If they were in a situation, maybe they would sell their games somewhere other than Steam.
What a ridiculous thing to say!
WTF? Indeed
hwb ... promised Arkham then pulled the plug on feral.
Do we know for sure who pulled the plug? It happened when it was getting review bombed and everyone was using the (brand new!) Steam refunding system. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Feral backed out at that point. Either way, it's disappointing, as it seems the reviews turned quite positive after the initial hatred.
Yes Warner brothers cancelled the port, the statement came out the see time as they said the team that developed the game has already moved on to other projects and there was no further patches expected Jim Sterling did a video on it ages ago.
Update: Phoronix removed the article, and placed up an apology.
Partly due to the stick he was getting for it too I reckon .
Think he realised his error in eagerness to jump in without clarification so to speak.
It would have come across more sincere if it was published like all the others and not buried 3/4 way down the front page!
Last edited by pete910 on 27 February 2020 at 5:55 pm UTC
Update: Phoronix removed the article, and placed up an apology.
Feral considered (or took) legal action?
After all this kind of news can seriously affect your business.
I've never seen Phoronix taking down a news and apologizing before.
I'm actually disappointed that they aren't in trouble. If they were in a situation, maybe they would sell their games somewhere other than Steam.
What a ridiculous thing to say!
*shrugs*
They currently aren't making any games for people that prefer their privacy to playing games. Seems weird to think that them distributing on more platforms would be bad for consumers.
I'm actually disappointed that they aren't in trouble. If they were in a situation, maybe they would sell their games somewhere other than Steam.
What a ridiculous thing to say!
*shrugs*
They currently aren't making any games for people that prefer their privacy to playing games. Seems weird to think that them distributing on more platforms would be bad for consumers.
*face plams*
Regardless of where you want to buy games from is no reason to wish/say such things about any firm/devs ect. You've basically ssaid you want people to lose there jobs just so you can buy "x" game on another store.
As stated by others, 99% of the time it's not ferrals decision to make. Which in turns makes the statement you make even more ridiculous due to your lack of knowledge of porting/licencing games/software/propriety IP.
And please, stop with the BS "Privacy" rhetoric.
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