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Desura goes bankrupt

Infinitron

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Digital Disturbance: Desura Owner Files For Bankruptcy

desura.jpg


Following troubles and discontent with developers being paid late by Desura, the digital distribution store’s owner Bad Juju Games have filed for bankruptcy. A member of Bad Juju confirmed the bankruptcy filing with us today, but the company haven’t made a statement yet or said anything about what’ll happen with people owed money or games folks have bought or whether the store will continue, or… anything. More will follow, I’m sure.

Bad Juju bought Desura from Second Life developers Linden Labs in November 2014. Shortly after, the first complaints about late payments began to surface. This all came to a head in late May, when Desura finally responded publicly. They blamed their tardiness on lacking an automated payment system, and did say they were starting getting manual payments rolling again while they worked on an automated system. Pretty big thing to lack, that, and not the fault of the developers who were being paid late.

Evidently greater problems were afoot. Whether any money at all will go to developers over the course of the bankruptcy proceedings remains to be seen. More on this as we know it.

If you’re a developer now looking for a new place to sell your games, I’d recommend at least taking a look at Itch.io and the Humble Store with its widget.
 

taxalot

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Now, this is going to get interesting : what will happen to games already bought by the poor suckers on Desura ? Should they download these in a hurry ?
 

Explorerbc

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It was pretty obvious, that this would happen at some point. Desura had no chance to compete against other distributors in almost all fronts : variety, prices, services etc.

It will be interesting indeed to see what happens. Probably it is up to individual devs to offer solutions to their customers even if they are not obliged to do so.
 

Infinitron

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Their own people didn't know: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/245334/Desuras_parent_company_has_filed_for_bankruptcy.php

Desura's parent company has filed for bankruptcy

Bad Juju, the parent company of game bundle seller Indie Royale and digital distribution storefront Desura, has filed for bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy adds more uncertainty to an already foggy situation. Bad Juju, which acquired Desura from Linden Lab late last year, was already behind on payments to game developers. Any further disruption to the storefront or to Indie Royale could cause further financial complications for those waiting to get paid.

Lisa Morrison, head of developer relations at Bad Juju, told Gamasutra she just found out about the bankruptcy on Friday morning, via Twitter. She said she had few details on the situation.

“I asked Tony [Novak, CEO of Bad Juju] for confirmation and all he could tell me was, ‘The lawyers have said I can't say anything or answer any questions yet, but yes it's true.’”

Morrison, who expressed shock and sadness on her own Twitter account over the ordeal, said she expects more details will emerge when Bad Juju’s trustees allow for it.

“I'm just shocked right now...stunned,” she said. “I had no idea this was coming.”

Meanwhile on Desura’s website, The Indie Stone, the developer behind the game Project Zomboidrecommended that players who haven’t activated Steam keys purchased via Desura to do so “as soon as possible.”

News of bankruptcy trouble began to emerge when Indie Royale’s Graeme Boxall tweeted, “If you Google, Bad Juju bankruptcy, you find some very unfortunate news.” The internet search points to evidence of the bankruptcy filing.

We’ll continue to follow this story as it develops.
 

Raghar

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Well that's what happens when company without money buys another company, and the owned company will not create enough money to cover debts of parent company. Aka enjoy market capitalism.
 

Astral Rag

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I wonder how this will affect Mod DB. There are enough alternatives to Desura but Mod DB is another story.
 
Last edited:

Tacgnol

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I wonder how this will affect Mod DB. There are enough alternatives to Desura but Mod DB is another story.

I'd be grabbing any big mods that are only hosted on moddb. We might have another NWNVault on our hands.
 

Tacgnol

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I wonder how this will affect Mod DB. There are enough alternatives to Desura but Mod DB is another story.

I'd be grabbing any big mods that are only hosted on moddb. We might have another NWNVault on our hands.
Wait, how do you know this?

Well if the parent company has gone bankrupt it doesn't bode well for the site does it?

Best to play it safe and make sure you have up to date copies of your favourite mods downloaded.

Edit: Based on what Infinitron just posted, we might be okay.
 

Metro

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That's what you get when you have the audacity to sell your game on a platform other than Steam! But this doesn't necessarily mean Desura is done for -- it'll be auctioned/sold off with the rest of Bad JuJu's assets.
 

Don Peste

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If I was Hervé Caen (I'm not) I would use the money from the Steam and GOG sales to acquire Desura. Appear as the savior of the indies! It'll all come naturally.

hcdesura.png
 

Baron Dupek

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I checked my desura account and only interesing thing here was Battle for Wesnoth and some Crysis mod War something.
Plus bunch of alpha state games (still, after long time, what a shock) and some indie garbage.
Nothing of the value was lost? I has some worries about moddb connections but they're already busted by previous posts.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

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I checked my desura account and only interesing thing here was Battle for Wesnoth and some Crysis mod War something.
Plus bunch of alpha state games (still, after long time, what a shock) and some indie garbage.
Nothing of the value was lost? I has some worries about moddb connections but they're already busted by previous posts.
Well, I was thinking about using Desura to sell my stuff to acquire necessary funds to get it on Steam Greenlight and make necessary preparations to ditch my day job.
Now I need to look for alternatives (unless Desura survives).
 

Rabbid

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Uh, what? I don't think Moddb is owned by these Bad Juju guys.

Desura used to be tied to the Mod DB community, as both were run by the same company.

Dunno if I got this right, but a quick search reveals that DBolical (epilepsy warning) used to own Desura. They sold it in 2013 and now only own the db sites. In other words, moddb will survive.
http://www.mobygames.com/company/dbolical-pty-ltd
 

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