A couple of years ago, a physical Wii U release for Axiom Verge was announced for North America, shortly after it arrived on the console digitally. Since then, the game has appeared on Switch in both physical and digital formats, but the Wii U version never arrived. As it turns out, the game is finally going on sale at the end of this month, but the road to release has been anything but simple.
The release is coming thanks to Limited Run Games, one of several companies which publishes indie games in physical form. As you can see below, the delay is thanks to an ongoing legal battle between Limited Run and publisher Badland Games - the two had signed contracts to work together on the project back in 2017.
GamesIndustry.biz has shared a full report on what happened between the two companies over the last couple of years, with comments from Limited Run's CEO, Josh Fairhurst, and BadLand Games CEO, Luis Quintans. The aforementioned contract was for 6,000 fully-assembled copies of the game on Wii U, with Limited Run handing over $78,000 to see it happen.
Despite this payment being made in 2017, Limited Run never received the copies it was promised, and multiple emails, threats of legal action, and then actual legal action don't seem to have made a difference either, with BadLand blaming a major banking error and its ongoing consequences for the lack of response.
Fairhurst is now working directly with the game's developers, Thomas Happ and Daniel Adelman, to bring the game to Wii U in physical form as previously promised. In another tweet, Limited Run says that "we won't come anywhere close to breaking even on this project after the money our former partner took from us - but we hope Wii U fans will appreciate the chance to own one of the best indie games physically for the platform!"
If you're interested in picking this one up, orders will go live on the Limited Run website on 29th March at 10am Eastern Time.
[source twitter.com, via gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 50
I've had this preordered on two sites for a long time now! Guess I'll have to pick it up from Limited Run Games then...
Actually picked it up on Switch recently for £11.99 from The Game Collection. But seeing as I played this first on the Wii U I'll double dip on it.
I'm certainly going to try to buy this.
Best selling physical Wii U game of 2019?
So US only? What happened to the EU version? I wanted to get this as my last physical Wii U game as it's a good one and should be quite rare. I do like limited run, but I wish they'd slow down a bit with the switch releases. It's impossible to keep up without spending a lot of money.
So what happens with my two preorders that I have for a European copy of this with 365games and Amazon Spain? Will they be cancelled?
This looks to be US only, so I can’t even play it on my Wii U if I did manage to get a copy (let’s face it, I wouldn’t).
Bummer.
Still waiting on Battle Princess Madelyn for Wii U but this should fill the void. After that, yeah my Wii U will probably collect dust. My Wii gets more use that than my Wii U. Funny how that works
@Old-Red Damn, I hadn't considered the region locking. I'm in Europe too.
@NintendoFan4Lyf By not buying it, it's more harmful since they spent even more money to put this together AFTER getting f-ed over. I'm really excited for this release.
Sounds like BadLands lived up its name.
Having recently decided to physically collect all of the 3DS/Wii U games I'm interested in (i.e. everything but obvious shovelware), I should probably pick this up. Kind of glad this is the only LRG on Wii U, though (since they couldn't get Nintendo to agree to a NA printing of Fatal Frame 5, apparently). If I ever decide to go for a full Vita or Switch library, the dozens of LRG releases are going to kill me.
Happy to see that this is finally happening, and just a few months ago I would have bought one. Now the Wii U is mostly the kids' gaming console, although I still need to go back and finish a few games I picked up near the end.
"A couple of years ago, a physical Wii U release for Axiom Verge was announced for North America"
AND Europe! Do. Some. Research.
I wanted to get this, shame it's America only now.
The average consumer will blast a company for wrongdoing online quite easily. But it's very rare for a company to do that to another company. Limited Run Games must truly believe that this is BadLand Publishing's fault and not the result of a bank error.
If BadLand really did just take the $78,000 and then pretend like they didn't get the money, that's really really bad.
EDIT: I just read the article that Limited Run Games linked to. Apparently, the courts ruled in Limited Run's favor. So yeah. Really bad.
Badland not only stole $78000 from LRG, they also stole $200.000 from Thomas Happ the dev of the game.
I feel disgusted buying the physical Vita and Switch version, Happ would get 75% of the sales but Badland never gave him anything from the sales, and Happ has a very sick child he wanted to put that money aside for the future.
I don't even own a US Wii U and the LRG release is sadly region locked, but I will buy this, LRG wasted extra money to do the release and 90% of the sales revenue goes to Thomas Happ.
Badland Games should burn in hell, they even want to avoid everything by changing their company name for the 2nd time in barely 2 years.
@NintendoFan4Lyf enough die hard collectors are going to buy this.
The game is only a few hundred megabytes. No reason to get a physical version of this at all really, except for collector purposes.
@subpopz I think you meant collectors, not completionists. But yeah
Limited Run playing the heroes as usual.
Except for all the European people that were promised this and of course all their shady release schedules and falsely creating to limited a supply to be able to charge more, creating a scalpers dream. Whilst they sit back and milk their limited customer base.
Someone else stitched them up??? Oh well. They’ll milk switch owners in the next month and recoup the money
@Stocksy I'm not a fan of LRG myself but what you say doesn't make any sense.
Badland Games is the bad guy here so blame them for lack of EU Wii U release, Nintendo works like this you as a company can only order games for the region you are in, LRG is US only so they can't even order EU copies of the game.
Second, Badland contacted LRG themself to do this release, Badland stole $78.000 from LRG and $200.000 from Thomas Happ the developer of Axiom Verge.
After all this LRG took their wallet, invested a ton of money to still make a physical release of Axiom Verge and also confirmed that 90% of the money from sales will go to Thomas Happ and his handicaped son, even while I dislike LRG under regular circumstances they are doing a very good thing here, especially because both LRG AND Thomas Happ are the financial victims of Badland Games.
And what about the promise Badland Games made to Thomas Happ with the 75% revenue? Thomas Happ never got the money from Badland Games because they kept the money for themself.
I was very interested in this release when it was first announced and may try to pick this up. LRG seems to have received a bad deal, and I respect the fact that they're still releasing these at all. IIRC, weren't a significant amount of the proceeds supposed to go to Tom Happ for his son?
I have the Switch physical version of Axiom Verge.
Learning how all of the money from it went to Badland Publishing and that they ran with the money promised for Thomas Happ and his child's needs, that disgusts me.
If it weren't for the fact this is NA only and the Wii U is region locked, I'd get this instead of the Switch version (which I haven't played but want to) to support the devs and LRG for keeping to their word.
Will grab this one! I've been wanting to get a complete Wii U set for a while and this one will be really inflated in price in a few years. It is a late release, low interest with low prints, and on a dead system; those tend to be key games for scalpers.
update your d***n article - when you post about actual news involving actual people engaged in real legal crap you need to continually commit to the article
I hope that Tomas Happ find an honest company that helps him make more metroid-like games. Someone like the company that developed Shovel Knight (I don't remember the name of the company, as I haven't acquired the game yet).
@subpopz None I've ever interacted with
I'm glad they didn't backstab Wii U owners like Bloodstained and Project CARS did.
@nukatha Unless Ubisoft releases another Just Dance game for Wii U this year (last year they released Just Dance 2020 for both Wii U and Switch
@Rayquaza2510 What is the name of BadLands now so I can never purchase a game from them ever again?
@Pichuka97 man there are so many great games for the WiiU. That and the fact it is a Wii also is a no brainier.
Why, though? Wii U is dead and buried at this point.
Wow that’s amazing I just wrote this off and had been hunting the game down for the past year!! I’m back on the hunt!
@Old-Red oh my aching wallet! LR is killing me i just ordered Curse of the moon today for Switch AND PS4 and now finally Axiom Verge is coming for Wii U! Have to add this to my collection!
I just heard that Limited Run Games is now also claiming that BadLand Publishing has not been paying Happ the proper amount, apparently about $200,000
@TheAwesomeBowser This game was probably planned to get physical release for the Wii U before the Switch came out.
(but still, it is always nice to get games on any system regardless, since their are new games coming out on OLDER consoles, like the SNES heheh!)
@IceEarthGuard it was announced when the Wii U was still the current console, planned to release shortly after the Switch came out
Bummer. I got tired of waiting and got a digital copy during a sale. Great game, too.
@ALinkttPresent Had a feeling that was the case, thanks.
@IceEarthGuard Oh, okay.
Once you go Switch you don't back.
@16bitdave That's like saying once you got a PS4 you don't go back to PS3 or PS2. Like why every generations had different games it's best to check them all out.
It gets worse: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-15-axiom-verge-producer-files-suit-against-badland-publishing-for-usd200k
@retro_player_22 This situation's a little bit different though, since Axiom Verge is also on Switch
@ALinkttPresent Either way the game was promised for Wii U and now it delivers. It didn't just get canned because there's a Switch port. Bloodstained still had a chance to redeem themselves but the creator had already spoken about not looking back so I don't think they will still considered a Wii U port, even Curse of the Moon which had a PS Vita and 3DS port never made it to Wii U. All things related to Bloodstained on Wii U are wiped from the Wii U catalog entirely.
@retro_player_22 Ur right I'm very sorry for my comment.
@16bitdave It's no big deal though, we just had to move on. We're still not sure if Ritual of the Night is worth the wait or not, hopefully it does. Switch port will eventually covered both the PS Vita and Wii U aspect of the game.
The Switch version is the definitive version of this game.
@Jack_Goetz BadLand Publishing admitted to wrongdoing today too, with regard to not paying Happ
As far as the region locking... Nintendo hasn't pushed any "security" updates to the Wii U for well over a year... So yeah, importing might workout.
Better to late then never? Nah, I'll stick with my digital Wii u version.
But of course its nice for the people who still want it.
@JJ286 Badland Publishing
@Rayquaza2510 So basically Badland screwed us Europeans over and the dev didn't bother looking for an alternative for us Europeans. Seems like karma got him hard for ignoring us like that.
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