UPDATED: MY.GAMES Drops Publishing Duties For Another Game, This Time It's Skyforge That's Getting A New Home

You may remember back in 2022 when things were getting a little weird for gaming companies as they tried to extricate themselves from doing business in Russia. With a war, sanctions, and more hitting the global stage, gaming companies wanted out of that market. Famously, Daybreak Games made things a bit confusing prior to that by making some weird claims about its previous ownership the year before.

MY.GAMES was part of these moves, too. MY.GAMES was sold off to LETA Capital in 2022, a venture capital firm managed by Alexander Chachava. Then the company was restructured later that year and a new company was created; Astrum Entertainment. This gave MY.GAMES the ability to say they didn't make money in Russia anymore, while Astrum operated the games in Russia instead. However, ownership of MY.GAMES and Astrum had an interesting overlap in Chachava being part of the team that created Astrum.

Then there was Innova. This game publishing company based in Russia operates the 4game platform and publishes EU/CIS versions of Lineage II and Ragnarok Online, among other titles. They were picked up by EG7 back in 2021, then a month later they ended up buying Daybreak Games.

Still with me? Good.

Today, MY.GAMES announced they would no longer be publishing Skyforge, the god-based MMORPG developed by The Allods Team. Instead, Innova would take over publishing duties later this year, but the particulars are still outstanding. This follows MY.GAMES dropping publishing duties for Conqueror's Blade earlier this year. The announcement does say that your progress will be retained and more details will come soon. "You can be sure that your data and progress are safe, and you can continue playing right where you left off after the publisher change is complete," reads the announcement.

The announcement isn't going over well in the game's Discord as players keep pointing to the phrase, "retain the quality level established by MY.GAMES" and are saying that is exactly what players DON'T want to happen. The post does mention "Many new adventures, challenges, battles, and discoveries still await you in Skyforge," but whether that hints at new content or is just PR speak remains to be seen. I'll bet it is the latter.

We've reached out to Innova with a few questions on the takeover and I'll update this piece if I hear from them. Of particular note, we wanted to know if this meant that Skyforge would move to the 4game platform Innova runs, if the game would continue to be available via Steam, and if The Allods Team would still be doing development or if this meant the game was headed to a maintenance mode.

We'll update this piece if we hear back.

UPDATE: While we are still awaiting replies from Innova, we did hear back from MY.GAMES who informed us that Skyforge was actually sold to a company called Music Guru, with MY.GAMES keeping the publishing duties until Music Guru and MY.GAMES' relationship was coming to an end and Music Guru selected a new publisher. Music Guru selected Innova and informed MY.GAMES of this choice leading MY.GAMES to inform players of Music Guru's publisher choice today. Music Guru LLC has already been updated as the publisher for Skyforge on Steam.

The full MY.GAMES statement is below:

“Skyforge was sold to the US-based company Music Guru, but MY.GAMES remained the publisher until the technical transfer of the game was completed. At the current moment we are about to finalize the transfer, our relationship with Music Guru is coming to an end. Music Guru, the new owner of the game, has informed us that the new publisher will be Innova. Consequently, we informed users about the change.”

UPDATE 8/27/2024: We've heard back from Innova on a few of our questions and want to include those updates for you. Below are our questions and their replies.

Q: Will Innova be responsible for all global publishing of Skyforge?

A: The current publisher of the game is Innova Co. Sarl based in Luxembourg. The company handles publishing and support for the project on consoles and PC, including the Steam platform, in the regions of Europe and the USA.

Q: Will Skyforge require the 4game platform or will the Steam version still be available?

A: Yes, the game will be available on 4game as well as on Steam.

Q: Will Skyforge still be developed by The Allods Team?

A: No, the development of the project is now managed by Innova Co. Sarl.

In response to that last question, we asked a follow-up question regarding future new content for Skyforge.

Q: Will new content for Skyforge be developed by Innova Co. Sarl, or is the development team just responsible for keeping the game running as it is today and cycling through seasons? A better way to ask may be to ask if Skyforge will ever see brand new content again?

A: We are considering the development of the new content after a successful migration. The SkyForge team will report any updates on the game website.